21st March, 2011
In compliance with the provisions of the Lagos State Pensions Law 2007, the Lagos State government has paid a contribution of N20.8 billion to the six approved Pension Fund Administrators, PFAs, on behalf of its employees as at January 2011.
The government has also within a period of four months issued retirement bond certificates worth N1.3 billion to 320 employees that retired from the services of the state.
The sum comprises of N412. 9 million redeemed into the Retirement Savings Accounts (RSAs) of 103 retirees in October, 2010 and N887.4 million redeemed into the RSA accounts of the second batch of 217 retirees in February, 2011.
These facts were disclosed by the Director-General, Lagos State Pension Commission (LASPEC), Rotimi Hussain during an interview recently.
The D-G stated that since the Commission commenced operation in February 2010, its main achievement was that of confidence and trust in the minds of public servants, adding that this had tremendously increased the number of registered employees in the scheme.
While debunking claims that beneficiaries of the bonds so far were mainly senior staff, Hussain said that Lagos State does not discriminate between cadres of workers, adding that “in actual fact, about 85% of those paid were between grade levels 2-9 officers.
On the existence of parastatals bond certificates, the DG stated that for now, parastatals did not have separate bond certificates, stressing that what LASPEC did presently was to ensure that parastatals had carried out their actuarial valuation exercise and the benefits known.
He, however, emphasized that right now, if the RSA balance was not more than N500,000, “it is recognised that the monthly pension would be so low, so everything in the RSA balance is released to the retiree but where the RSA balance is more than N500,000, the retiree will discuss and agree with his PFA on the mode of collecting his pension, either by way of a programmed withdrawal or annuity but could collect 25% of the total amount as lump sum.â€
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