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House of Representatives’ decision to probe the activities of the National Pension Commission (PenCom) since April 2017 till date appears to have brought about calmness in the pension industry.
Industry stakeholders are however worried on the nature of the information the probe may provide to the public.
While some of them see nothing wrong in a probe, they are worried that sensitive and confidential information on the industry would be exposed to the public, saying the decision may hurt rather than help the industry and cause unnecessary anxiety by pension contributors in Nigeria.
An ad-hoc committee of the House of Representatives mandated to probe activities of the PenCom since April 2017 has sent tongues wagging on the exact motives and end game of the investigation.
The Committee headed by E.J. Agbonayinma, had in a letter to Aisha Umar, acting director-general of PenCom, dated January 21, requested confidential information on the Contributory Pension Fund, leading to speculation in the industry on why legislators would request information that breaches the law.
In the letter titled: “Request for Information,” the Committee asked PenCom to furnish it with sensitive information on its operations as well as the status of pension contributions in Retirement Savings Accounts (RSA), contrary to the provisions of the Pension Reform Act (PRA) 2014, which forbids the Commission and members of the Commission from disclosing such information.
Among the information requested by the legislative committee are “The Net Asset Values of the Contributory Pension Funds, details of supervision and regulations of Pension Fund Administrators and their key instructions and performances, compliances and defaults, annual pension operations of all the Pension Fund Administrators (i.e. details of amount collected from contributors and amount being paid out to retirees, from April 2017 till date).”
The Committee also requested for details of investment percentages and profits from the investment of pension funds, and details of the Federal Government contributions to the Federal Government bonds.
It also asked for the “contributions of retirement savings account holders to Pension Funds Administrators and details of payments from PenCom into the Treasury Single Accounts (TSA) and bank accounts details operated by the Commission.” It also requested the PenCom to respond to the request urgently.
Stakeholders, who spoke on condition of anonymity, wondered why the lawmakers would ask the Commission to breach the pension law to give sensitive and confidential information about contributions of retirement savings account holders.
According to a senior staff of a PFA, “Some of us are ready to sue PenCom if this confidential information is given out because it is an infringement on the right of the account holders as well as the business strategies of respective operator companies.”
The probe is capable of causing ripples in the financial industry in Nigeria due to the huge amount of investments by pension funds in various sectors of the economy, he said.
In the meantime, there is no proof whether PenCom intends to provide the information requested by the Committee or not, but a member of the Committee contacted said the Commission was yet to respond to their request.
