NUP Advocates Review Of Contributory Pension Reform Act

By Angel-Linda Ike

The National Union of Pensioners has called for review of the contributory pension scheme to include top civil servants and military personnel in service.

Spokesperson of the Union, Bunmi Ogunkolade made the call at the annual conference of the Pension Correspondents Association of Nigeria (PENCAN) in Abuja, with the theme: “20 Years of Pension Reform Act: Gains, Challenges, and Prospects,”

He questioned, “what makes the permanent secretaries exempted from that scheme? At least, they are the ones that went to Chile and brought it as a Chile examples, if your food is so good and your mama food is so good, why are you not eating from it?

He continued, “Why are the.police agitating so endlessly that they wanted to leave the scheme? All these are the problems and challenges inherent on this new scheme.”

Ogunkolade charged the Nigerian workers to speak out on the sections of the pension act that constitute a clog on the progress of pension implementation.

“I put a challenge to many workers of today, who will become pensioners tomorrow, how many of us has gone through the pension reform act, 20 years after?. 2004 as amended in 2014, how many of the contributors that are working have gone through that act? Maybe, five to ten percent.”

“When we don’t know, how can we comment on it? How can we have opinion on this? So that we can challenge every obnoxious section in the law court, in the court of public opinion or at the National Assembly. All these will help us to shape and reshape the act. “he said.