The Contributory Pension Scheme administered by the PFAs has since inception, 17 years ago, recorded some achievements as well as met obstacles. In this report, Ebere Nwoji takes a look at the performance of the scheme in the face of the down turn in Nigeria’s economy.

The Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS) regime in Nigeria was established by the Pension Reform Act 2004 amended in 2014, which put the Management of pension fund in the hands of private Organisations called Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs).

The investment of the contributed fund was also placed in the hands of different set of investment experts called Pension Fund Custodians (PFCs). Both have their activities regulated by the National Pension Commission (PenCom), which also stands as federal government adviser on pension matters.

With the establishment of these bodies and enactment of laws guiding their operations, Nigerian pension system which hitherto was enmeshed in huge deficit of over N2 .56 trillion during the Defined Benefit pension scheme era, suddenly wriggled out of the deficit track to gain its present ground of conveniently sitting on huge accumulated N13 trillion assets.

This has automatically positioned the pension sub sector as a vibrant part of the finance service sector of the economy. The above N13 trillion represents the quantum of contributions made by both employees and employers of over 9 million Nigerian workers who have so far keyed into the scheme.

The fund contributors were all registered by the 22 licensed Pension Fund Administrators in the country and their investment into various investment portfolios specified by the law is managed by four-registered pension fund Custodians in Nigeria.

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