Leading pension fund administrator (PFA) Premium Pension Limited has paid out over N300 billion on benefits to its retirees and contributors since the commencement of the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) in 2004.
The PFA with assets under management (AUM) put at N1.2 trillion at the end of the 2023 financial year, pays about N1 billion to 25,000 retirees on programmed withdrawal on monthly basis.
Kemi Oluwashina, acting managing director of Premium Pension Limited speaking at the PFAs 2024 Retirees forum titled ‘Golden Years’, said “For us at Premium Pension, our mission is all about making sure that retirees enjoy their golden years.
“I really don’t like using the word retirement because retirement was like a derogatory word at some point in Nigeria. And I’m sure you all know when someone hears retirement, it’s almost like a death sentence.”
“So when we were putting together the five-year strategy that we’re just about to refresh now, we looked for a way to introduce a different word that would not connote that sort of negative word around retirement, and so-called its golden years, which is about retirement.”
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She said the essence of the programme was to give the retirees the platform to be heard. We need to give them that platform to know that they are appreciated.
“It’s something we used to do in the past. Now that we are back to doing it, we are going to create a cycle out of it. Even from the feedback, you can tell there is a lot of energy in the room. And those are the kinds of conversations we want. We don’t believe in bearing conversations. We believe in making the right platform available for people to express their views.”
“Even from the feedback we get from sessions like this, in our engagement and interaction with the regulators or the respective employers, which in this case includes the federal government, state governments, and of course private sector organizations, we are not only engaging with them as employers, but we’re also the voice of their respective employees. So, this feedback for us is fantastic. We love it.”
“We want to know whether they are happy or not. And we want to know those things that they consider priority so that we can then be their voice to the respective stakeholders, to the regulators and others alike”.
On what can be done to improve the take-home pay for retirees, she said adequacy is now the next level of conversation we need to have, especially now that things around minimum wage, so minimum pension is also an offshoot of that.
However, beyond minimum pension, the federal government did not say put all your money into this. They say, we only told you to put eight percent of your basic housing, and transport allowance into this scheme to fund your life at retirement, then your employer contributes 12 percent.
That amount you are putting aside is not exactly enough to give you that same salary that you retire with for life, not even in an inflationary environment like Nigeria, where 1,000 naira today is not 1,000 naira tomorrow. But in an inflationary environment, as we have it in Nigeria, the salary cannot take a lot of people home. Therefore, it is about multiple streams of income, but not even spending those multiple streams of income. It is to be able to put some of those monies aside to invest for the future, adding to your voluntary contribution.
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