The Director General of the Pension Commission (PenCom), Ms. Omolola Oloworaran, has highlighted the achievement of the Commission in enforcing compliance on employers to remit pension deductions of their employees.
She made the disclosure on Tuesday, at the 2025 PenCom Media Conference tagged, ‘Pension Revolution Summit: A 365-Day Scorecard’.
The DG revealed that from January to November 2025, total pension recoveries reached N4.04 billion, compared to N1.44 billion recorded in the entire year of 2024—representing an increase of 180 percent achievement.
She explained that PenCom issued a decisive compliance circular in the second quarter of 2025, linking Pension Clearance Certificates to participation across the pension value chain, resulting in positive outcomes for pensioners.
“Most notably, N2.06 billion was recovered in the third quarter of 2025 alone, equalling the total amount recovered in 2024,” she said.
Oloworaran noted that a similar shift was evident in compliance behaviour, clearly demonstrating that when compliance is tied to real economic consequences, behaviour changes.
She stated that one of the most historic milestones of the year was the presidential approval and disbursement of the N758 billion bond to settle outstanding pension liabilities.
According to her, the unprecedented intervention sent a clear and powerful signal that Nigeria honours its commitments to workers and retirees.
To further enhance benefit adequacy, she disclosed that the Commission introduced Pension Post 1.0, which has added N2.68 billion to monthly pension payments for CPS retirees since June 2025.
On digitalising operations, she acknowledged that while the Commission still has work to do, PenCom has achieved full automation of critical pension processes, including the upgrading and automation of the Benefit Processing and Contribution Remittance Platform.
The DG noted that one of the Commission’s new product, PenCare, is aimed to providing free healthcare for low-income pensioners.
“This year, we inaugurated the Board of Trustees of the Pension Healthcare Initiative, a landmark industry intervention aimed at providing affordable and accessible healthcare for low-income retirees,” she added.
She assured that in the next phase of the pension revolution, the Commission will expand coverage, deepen trust, improve investment outcomes, strengthen supervision, and protect retirees.
Also speaking, the Head of PenCom’s Management Services Department, Usman Musa, revealed that it has paid N577,264,960,890 to 1,053,000 Retirement Savings Accounts (RSAs) as part of efforts to clear the pension backlog.
It would be recalled that the Federal Executive Council (FEC), on February 5, 2025, approved the issuance of a N758 billion bond to settle outstanding pension liabilities for federal pensioners.
Providing an update on the bond, Musa confirmed that the full N758 billion has been released to the Commission.
He explained that a major portion of the funds, N387 billion, was earmarked for pension increases.
Out of this amount, he stated, “We have paid out N362,700,000,000.”
He further disclosed that PenCom has remitted N107 billion to cover the 2.5 percent shortfall in pension contributions by the Federal Government over a five-year period (2017 to 2021), when the government did not remit contributions.
According to him, the remittance went directly to 750,232 RSAs.
“In a whole, the total payout of N577,264,960,890 has already hit the RSAs of either retirees or pension contributors. In total, this has directly impacted 1,053,000 Retirement Savings Accounts,” he said.