Are you an artisan, your future comes bright on pension plan

The informal sector population making up 70 percent of the country’s workforce including mechanics, bricklayers, vulcanizers, market men, women and other artisans who were not structured into the nation’s contributory pension scheme following the Pension Reform Act 2004, many soon have a sigh of relive.

Implication of this is that if the process sells through, there would have become a more guaranteed future for them in old age, so that there would be something to fall back on during retirement, such as what has been achieved with the scheme for public and organised private sector employees.

This is coming on the heels of ongoing effort by the pension authority, the National Pensions Commission (PenCom) to come out with a framework that would captured those not covered by the Pension Reform Act 2004.

It will be such that, the informal sector workers either on individual levels or in groups as cooperative societies, transport workers Union or under different levels of association will be able to key into the scheme, make their contributions for retirement.

This development analysts have said is going boos the size of the nation’s pension industry, as huge population of the workforce resides with the informal sector, where has been said confine huge economic activities not known to many.

The pension assets managed by the Pension Fund Administrators has as at December 2012 reached N3 trillion with 5 million contributors, while about 21 States of the federation has complied with the scheme.

The Contributory Pension Scheme which came into being following the enactment of the Pension Reform Act 2004 has as its objective to ensure that every person who worked in either the Public Service of the Federation, Federal Capital Territory or Private Sector receives his retirement benefits as and when due; assist improvident individuals by ensuring that they save in order to cater for their livelihood during old age and establish a uniform set of rules, regulations and standards for the administration and payments of retirement benefits for the Public Service of the Federation, Federal Capital Territory and the Private Sector.

MODESTUS ANAESORONYE