Retiring in 2020? PenCom has begun verification exercise

The National Pension Commission (PenCom) has begun the verification and enrolment exercise for federal government workers who are due to retire in 2020.

Olakunde Olugbenga, team lead of PenCom verification in Port Harcourt, told NAN that the exercise is for prospective retirees in Rivers and Bayelsa.

He said the exercise holding in 15 centres across the country was to enable prospective retirees to enrol in their respective domains rather than coming to PenCom headquarters in Abuja.

“So, we are here for verification and enrolment for federal government workers in Rivers and Bayelsa states retiring in 2020 as well as those who missed previous exercises,” he said on Tuesday.

“The major purpose is for us to collect information needed for the computation of the retirement benefits of prospective retirees.

“Biometrics and biodata of candidates will be collected during the exercise, which PenCom will use to compute their retirement benefits.”

According to Olakunde, a list of the prospective retirees will be forwarded to the federal ministry of budget at the end of the exercise to ensure that they are captured in the 2020 budget.

He said inclusion in the budget would mean that employees can receive their retirement benefits at the point of retirement.

The pension officer said the commission was unaware of the number of candidates that would participate in the exercise, partly due to non-compliance by some ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs).

“At the beginning of the year, PenCom sent letters out to MDAs to give us a list of employees that were expected to retire from service in 2020,” he said.

“However, the majority of the MDAs did not respond to our request. So, we will not be able to give an estimate of prospective retirees that will participate in the exercise.

“But by the end of today, we should probably be looking at over 100 prospective retirees from various MDAs participating in the exercise.”

Olugbenga attributed the delay in payment of retirement benefits to a decline in federal government’s revenue, saying that in spite of the dwindling revenue, the government still released huge funds in 2019.