PenCom DG: Accredited Pension Brokers reform targets 75 million casual employees

The Director-Basic of the Nationwide Pension Fee (PenCom), Omolola Oloworaran, has said that the following frontier of ongoing pension reforms is focused at over 75 million casual employees in Nigeria.

She made this disclosure on Monday on the govt launch of Awabah, PenCom’s pioneer Accredited Pension Agent, at an occasion attended by Nairametrics.

The launch comes days after the Fee introduced that it had licensed Awabah as the primary Accredited Pension Agent (APA) for enrolling contributors beneath the Private Pension Plan, marking a brand new part in Nigeria’s pension reform journey.

Oloworaran mentioned Nigeria’s pension system has made vital progress however stays skewed towards the formal sector, leaving tens of millions of employees uncovered.

She defined that the following part of pension reform should deal with closing the hole created by the nation’s predominantly casual economic system.

“In keeping with the Nationwide Bureau of Statistics, over 93 per cent of our workforce is casual — greater than 75 million individuals,” she mentioned. 

She added that this casual workforce powers Nigeria’s economic system each day, but most of them retire with no financial savings, pension, or security web.

“This hole shouldn’t be solely a social problem; it’s a nationwide vulnerability. Closing this hole is the following frontier of pension reform,” she added. 

“And Nigeria shouldn’t be a proper economic system. That leaves a niche that we should shut.” 

“Accredited Pension Brokers like Awabah symbolize the way forward for pension distribution.” 

“This isn’t nearly retirement financial savings; additionally it is about jobs and {economic} alternative,” she mentioned. 

She famous that with pension property exceeding N27 trillion and greater than 10 million Retirement Financial savings Accounts, the system has achieved scale, however largely amongst salaried employees.

In keeping with her, Accredited Pension Brokers will function the bridge to markets, villages, motor parks, farms, and workshops by leveraging expertise to achieve casual employees nationwide.

Stakeholders on the occasion highlighted the broader {economic} implications of increasing pension protection past the formal sector.

The CEO of Nairametrics, Ugodre Obi-Chukwu, in an interview, argued that private pensions, previously often called micro-pensions, can play a vital position in capital formation whereas offering long-term safety for casual employees.

Each audio system agreed that PenCom’s choice to license early innovators comparable to Awabah alerts a powerful regulatory intent to combine casual employees into Nigeria’s pension and capital formation ecosystem, whereas additionally strengthening social safety.

PenCom has not too long ago intensified reforms geared toward bettering entry, effectivity, and belief within the pension system.

In keeping with the Fee, these reforms are designed to enhance knowledge accuracy, improve service supply, and help its broader push to convey extra Nigerians—particularly these within the casual sector—into the pension system.