Open letter to Director General of PENCOM

Let me use this medium to congratulate you on the enviable steps taken by your esteemed commission under your able leadership. 

We are keenly watching your untiring efforts towards the use of technology to offer service to retirees, the bold effort to enlist and bring the macro pension plan to the doorsteps of the informal sector, diversifying the investment opportunities for RSA holders and retirees; as well as implementation of the transfer window as provided by the enabling act.

I am one of those who retired from service this year and was successfully verified and enrolled on September 29, 2021. We were hopefully looking forward to payment of accrued benefits until your advert which pushed forward the process to December 29, 2021, to allow for those who could not register to do so. We thought the commission under your leadership would observe the principle of first come first served.

Similarly, we are worried that the envisage deregulation of the downstream sector of the oil industry and removal of petrol subsidy next year (February, 2022) with the concomitant inflationary trend that will accompany the policy decision will substantially erode into our accrued right when it is eventually paid.

It is in the light of the above, that I write to solicit and request your prompt action towards the release of our monies so that we can invest same before the setting in of the inflationary spiral occasioned by the government policy.

Going by newspaper publication (Daily Trust of the 12th August, 2021), you had indicated that government had graciously released the accrued right of retirees of 2020, 2021 and even 2022 including 2.5 per cent differential. In fact, our PFA’s had credited the differential to our various RSA accounts.

We pray you will do your utmost to ensure the release of our monies in early January, 2022, before the commencement of the policy in February, 2022.

We look forward to your expeditious action in this regard.

Mamoon A. Abubakar