By Ijeoma Nwankpa, Abuja, Nigeria.
The National Pension Commission (PenCom) has organized a retreat on the review of the Pension Reform Act 2014 (PRA 2014) in Abuja.
The retreat is aimed at identifying salient issues to be reviewed in the PRA 2014 as
a prelude to advancing legislative action on the Bill.
The PRA 2014 was enacted following a review of the initial Pension Reform
Act of 2004, which introduced legal and institutional frameworks of the
Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) and established PenCom to regulate and
supervise all pension matters in Nigeria.
Speaking during the opening ceremony of the retreat, the Director General of PenCom, Aisha Dahir-Umar, informed the participants that the PRA 2014 codified one of the most important socioeconomic reform initiatives of the Federal Government.
She said the pension industry has accumulated pension assets in excess of thirteen trillion naira invested in various aspects of the Nigerian economy.
According to her, the review is a corollary to some implementation challenges
encountered with certain sections of the Act not long after its enactment in
July 2014 as well as the persistent calls from stakeholders for the amendment of some sections of the Act.
Dahiru- Umar said the PRA resulted in several legislative initiatives
through the sponsorship of Bills for amendment of the PRA 2014 by the
National Assembly.
Consequently, the Commission, as the regulator of the pension industry,
decided to coordinate and harmonize the various efforts in order to achieve a more comprehensive and constructive exercise for the review of the PRA.
It is expected that the
National Assembly would subsequently organize a public hearing in order to
provide an avenue for stakeholders to formally make input into the proposed
amendments.
