Pension Experts advise FG to Look into Poor Pension Payments to Police Officers

Some insurance and pension experts have called on the Federal Government to urgently look into the alleged poor pension payments being paid to some retired Nigeria Police Officers.

The experts made the call in separate interviews with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos on Sunday against the backdrop of recent demonstrations across the country by some police retirees.

NAN reports that the retirees, who are under the contributory pension scheme being managed by NPF Pensions Limited, alleged that they were shortchanged as they were paid as low as N2 million lump sum on retirement.

Oku Nana, the Chairman of Retired Police Officers Association (Under the Contributory Pension Scheme) in Lagos, said that some retired middle cadre officers in the police were paid as low as N3.5 million lump sum instead of N10 million paid to their mates in other agencies.

The experts told NAN that the problem might be due to low savings in the officers’ Retirement Savings Accounts (RSA).

They alleged that their employer (The Nigeria Police) might not have made all the mandatory counterpart contributions to their RSAs as required by law.

PensionNigeria Comment
Under the Contributory Pension Scheme your pension is determined by the amount you have in your Retirement Savings Account (RSA).

Nigeria Police Force PFA can only pay retirees based on the amount in their Retirement Savings Account unless NPF PFA has collected funds from Nigeria Police (the employer) which it was unable to match to police officers RSAs and the funds are still with NPF PFA, then NPF PFA will share in the blame, this is what they call uncredited contributions.

In the public sector where police officers fall, an employee must ensure that he/she provides the correct level and step for the computation of pension and most especially accrued rights because this is one of the reasons why some people get less than the amount due to them.

Police offers are advised to use legal and established procedures within the force to submit their grievances to the Nigeria Police Force, their employer.