Gordian Ekeoba, an estate surveyor, worked with a real estate company in Port Harcourt for 19 years.
He had always dreamt of a comfortable retirement, envisioning himself settling down in his Port Harcourt home with family and enjoying pensions upon retirement.
Eager to make his dreams a reality, he opened a Retirement Savings Account (RSA) with a Pension Fund Administrator (PFA) who then generated a Personal Identification Number (PIN) for him.
His gratuity and entitlements were moved to his PFA while his employer continued the remittance of monthly contributions.
On getting a new job in 2019 with another real estate firm in Lagos, Ekeoba opened a new account with another PFA. He did not continue with his old PFA.
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Ekeoba said, “I was willing to continue with my PFA, but when my HR manager in the new organisation told me that all staff members were using a particular PFA, I joined without knowing the implications.”
But as years went by, and Ekeoba was ready to retire, he realised that he could not access his pensions because he had breached a provision in the pension law.
Therefore, what began as a right step towards his dream retirement some 19 years ago became a problem when he discovered that he would not be able to access his pensions because of the double PIN numbers emanating from enrolling in more than one PFA.
Like Ekeoba, there are many pension contributors having the same problem. Many of them would be facing account reconciliation challenges when they leave employment.
Experts on pensions say this should be resolved now through the National Pension Commission (PenCom) data recapture exercise. Otherwise, this may hinder them from accessing their pensions upon retirement.
According to PenCom, “An employee is required by law to open only one RSA, which should be maintained throughout his/her lifetime even if he/she changes employment.”
According to PenCom, “Having more than one RSA would lead to incorrect remittances into the RSA and delay in payment of retirement benefits due to the need to reconcile the RSAs.”
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On what an affected contributor should do, PenCom said, “If you have more than one RSA, you are required to present all your RSA PINs to any of the PFAs that issued them. The PFA would recapture your details, including one of the registered PINs. The recaptured PIN becomes your PIN for life, while all other RSA PINs will be forwarded to PenCom for deactivation after reconciling the balances (if any) in the RSAs associated with them.”
PenCom has since directed all RSA holders and retirees to update their bio-data, particularly the National Identification Number (NINs) and Bank Verification Numbers (BVNs) with their respective PFAs. It has also directed all PFAs to update the records of their clients.
BusinessDay checks, however, show that some contributors who registered with more than one PFA and possess more than one RSA PINs do not know which PFA to align with as, in most cases, they have their contributions spread in more than one PFA.
“I have two different PINs, one with AIICO Pensions and another with Stanbic IBTC Pensions,” one of the contributors told BusinessDay.
According to the contributor, he had earlier registered with one of the PFAs. When he changed employment, his new employer did not accept the first PFA. As a result, he was compelled to open an account with a second PFA where the rest of the staff had their contributions.
Currently, he is confused, having received a notification from one of the PFAs about its plan to update his bio-data.
“We are aware of these issues and that is why we are appealing to contributors to provide their NINs) and BVNs with their PFAs so that we can reconcile the information we have,” a senior official of PenCom had said.
Patrick Ezeala, former pension manager and now environmental consultant, had said that inadequate and inappropriate data input by contributors at times render the work of pension operators extremely difficult and slow down the reconciliation processes.
“Even contributors have been subjected to avoidable suffering because of the inadequacies and inconsistencies in data input. Some have had the payment of their entitlements unduly delayed, and consequently casting slurs on the effectiveness of the CPS,” he said.
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