In an effort to highlight the value of early planning, the Federal Government, acting through the National Pension Commission, claims to have formally begun the process of enrolling potential retirees in 2025.

All ministries, departments, and agencies were also given strong warnings, advising them to refrain from any last-minute rush that can interfere with the enrolment process and make it more difficult for retirees to adjust to their new stage of life.

During a workshop held on Monday in Abuja to launch the 2024 online enrolling applications for pension desk officers of Federal government treasury-funded MDAs, Omolola Oloworaran, the acting director-general of the National Pension Commission, revealed this information.

The last-minute planning for the 2024 Online Enrolment Exercise, which is targeted at potential retirees for 2025, has begun with this workshop.

Currently, 7,348,028 people in Nigeria, or 10.58 percent of the country’s working population, are registered members of the National Pension Scheme. The commission reported that it paid N1.1tn to 129,435 life annuity applicants in the second quarter of 2024, reflecting advances in pension benefits.

During her speech, the acting director general (DG) said that the purpose of this exercise is to gather precise information so that the federal government may evaluate the Accrued Pension Rights of potential retirees and make the appropriate budgetary adjustments.

The commission, she continued, has advanced significantly by automating the enrolment procedure and launching an online enrolment application that makes retiree enrolment, verification, and registration easy.

According to Oloworaran, “We at the National Pension Commission are steadfast in our statutory obligation to guarantee a smooth pre-retirement verification and enrolment process for workers of MDAs that receive funding from the Federal Government Treasury.” We undertake this activity every year to collect precise data for calculating the future retirees’ Accrued Pension Rights, so that the Federal Government can make the appropriate financial preparations.

“This is not just another regular meeting; it is an integral component of PenCom’s effort to strengthen the capabilities of all parties involved, particularly you, the Pension Desk Officers, who play a crucial role in this process. We have advanced significantly since 2021 by automating the enrolling procedure and launching an online enrolment application that enables quick and easy retiree enrolment, verification, and registration.

The Retiree, MDA, PFA, and PenCom modules together make up this system, which is a representation of Nigeria’s pension administration going forward. You PDOs are the key players in this process, making sure that the data is correctly uploaded and validated. Therefore, the goal of this workshop is to provide you with the abilities and information required to utilise the program efficiently and deal with any issues that may come up during the enrolment process. We are also here to directly address the problems from the past.

The goal of the session, according to the acting DG, is to provide pension desk officers with workable answers for application problems.

This system, which consists of the Retiree, MDA, PFA, and PenCom modules, is a future-oriented depiction of Nigeria’s pension administration. As the primary participants in this process, you PDOs ensure that the data is uploaded and validated accurately. Thus, the objective of this session is to equip you with the skills and knowledge needed to effectively utilise the program and handle any problems that may arise along the registration process. In addition, we are here to deal with the issues from the past head-on.

The acting DG stated that the purpose of the meeting was to give pension desk officials practical solutions to application issues.