Trustfund cautions against late remittance of employees pension deductions … Says PFAs can’t sanction employers

Trustfund Pensions Limited has lamented late remittance of employees pension deductions by employers and declared that as a Pension Fund Administrator (PFA), it cannot sanction any employer who fails to remit his employees pension on time.

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It therefore cautioned employers of Labour against late remittance of workers pension deduction, saying that late remittance leads to loss of income by retirees.

Trustfund’s Customer Relationship Manager, Maha Longe, who spoke at the Trustfund Pensions Limited Customers interactive forum, held at the Labour House, Abuja, recently, said employers are expected to remit all deducted pension funds to the Pensions Fund Administrators (PFAs) within seven days of making such deductions.
According to her, late remittance of funds into PFAs account, which are later made in bulk once, twice or quarterly within the year by employers is against the provision of the Pension Reforms Act 2014.
Longe said “It has been discovered that some employers actually remit but do it wrongly. Every employer is supposed to remit all deducted funds at the end of every month. The provision of the law is that they should remit to PFAs seven days after deducting.
“There are employers that remit quarterly, bi-annual or annually. This is wrong and at variance with the law guiding the contributory pension scheme. Late remittance leads to loss of income by retirees. Often times, retirees complain about low income when they retire which is caused by late remittance by employers.”
She, however, lamented that the PFAs cannot sanction any employers for late remittance but explained that Trustfund now notifies the National Pension Commission (Pencom) to report such non-compliance for possible sanction.
“We are not the one to sanction any  employer who refuses to remit his employees pension, but the National Pens   ion Commission and they are actually doing it because such employers pay through their nose,” Longe said.
She blamed the inability of next of kin of dead retirees to access their accounts, on refusal of retirees or the workers to update their records.
She, therefore, added that the customers’ forum is used as an avenue by Trustfund to address this and other problems, such as updating of biodata, change of bank details and upgrade of next of kin.
Longe added: “Customers forum is used to upgrade the data of our customers. There are enrolees who want to change the names of their husband or wife, change their bank details, change of address, update their next of kin and other information that is critical in their records.
“This is very important but unfortunately many workers and retirees do not care to do all the needful until challenges come their way. Trustfund provides these forums for easy upgrade of information. We also use the forum to embark on periodical upgrade of biometric of all our enrolees. Biometrics are compulsory for all our old and new enrolees for easy administrative purposes.”
In his presentation, the Trustfund Region Manager, North, Morris Oga, said the contributory pension scheme has brought stability to pension administration in the country.
He pointed out that the scheme is on the right track although not without rough edges that will smoothen in the course of implementation.
One of the retirees and immediate past Director of National Productivity Centre, Dr. Paul Bdliya, acknowledged that the scheme operated by Trustfund has been very good and Trusfund has been very faithful.
He explained that most of the retirees get their monthly pension on time, adding, “without missing words, they get it between 22 and 23 of each month.”
On the regular biometrics, he said the idea is very good because there is the need to upgrade records with the PFA, because people die every time and the records must be upgraded.
But he stated that the crowed is too much, even when most of them are elderly people; advising that Trustfund should try to divide the crowed to about three groups and separate the day each group would be attended to.
Dr.Bdliya said: “In another way this is a sort of anti corruption way of running the scheme  and it is very good. It is o Kay to get reassured that you are paying the correct people and also this can be better if this group were  divided into two or three so that the interaction can be meaningful because it occurs to me that this group is large and some will go back without asking their question.”