President Bola Tinubu has said that the payment of monthly pensions to retirees should not be regarded as a favour from the government but an obligation owed to workers after years of service.
Tinubu stated this on Thursday in Abuja during the unveiling of PenCare.
The President, who was represented at the event by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, George Akume, described pensions as deferred wages earned by workers and held in trust until retirement.
According to him, his administration is committed to fulfilling its obligations to pensioners.
“A pension is not a favour granted by Government. It is a wage earned, deferred and held in trust. It is a promise. And this administration has resolved that the promise will be kept,” he said.
Also speaking at the event, the Director-General of the National Pension Commission (PenCom), Omolola Oloworaran, called for the creation of three million new funded and active pension accounts.
Oloworaran stressed that the target should go beyond registering new contributors to ensuring that their accounts receive actual contributions.
“Not registrations, three million funded active accounts, new accounts. Because an empty account is a statistic, but a funded account is a future and might just be the beginning of planning the security of that future,” she said.
She emphasised the importance of ensuring that pension accounts are adequately funded to provide workers with financial security after retirement.
