The National Pension Commission (PenCom) has urged the organised private sector (OPS) to intensify the campaign for the Micro Pension Plan (MPP), which seeks to expand retirement savings.

Speaking during the Commission’s special day at the just-concluded Lagos International Trade Fair organised by the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), the Head of the Micro Pensions Department at PenCom, Dauda Ahmed, said the MPP was introduced by the Pension Reform Act (PRA) 2014 to allows individuals working in organisations with fewer than three employees and self-employed individuals to voluntarily participate in the contributory pension scheme and save for their retirement age.

Ahmed urged artisans, traders, and self-employed persons to enroll in the Micro Pension Scheme of the commission to guarantee a functional retirement plan.

He added: “The MPP presents a significant opportunity for workers in the informal sector to secure their future through retirement savings.”

This, according to him, suggests that the level of awareness of the scheme among artisans, entrepreneurs and other participants in the informal sector has increased in the last few months.

Ahmed said: “Over 97,000 contributors have registered for the micro pension plans. However, the commission has witnessed an improvement in terms of enrollment mainly because of an increase in awareness in the country.”

According to him, participation in the yearly trade fair is one of the strategies the Commission is using to sustain the momentum of micro pension.

“The trade fair is a forum that attracts business people and stakeholders that we feel should be part of the micro pension system and this is a forum for us to interact with those stakeholders to explain to them what benefits they stand to get from the micro pension. The response has been quite encouraging. We have had interactions with participants, and we have enlightened them on what the plan is all about and how they can benefit from the initiative.

“We have been reaching out to unions, and leadership of associations, to have discussions with them so that they can convince their members to join the plan, because in old age, what matters is the cash that you have, not necessarily the assets that you have. So, if you have something that can give you a steady income, you want to sustain it,” he said.

Also speaking on the progress of the MPP initiative, the Head of South West Zonal Office, PenCom, Sola Adeseun, who represented the Director General, Aisha Dahir-Umar, said: “Participating at the trade fair is just one of our strategies in creating awareness about MPP. Apart from this, PenCom also reaches out to market women across the country to have sessions with them so that they can also contribute to the micro pension plan to have something to fall back to in their retirement age.”

He also stressed that the MPP is being embraced in Lagos and that the zonal office is intensifying efforts at creating more awareness of the MPP within the South West geo-political zone.

The President of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Dr. Michael Olawale-Cole, in his welcome address commended the pension industry for its success over the years, with total pension assets of N17.35 trillion as of September 2023 and a contributors’ base of about 10.1 million people.

Olawale-Cole said that 10.1 million people covered only 16.8 per cent of the Nigerian workers population indicating significant headroom for growth.

According to him, despite significant made so far, there is still a need for the sector to address the challenges hindering its progress such as inconsistent policies, delay in payment of pensions and gratuities to deserving retirees, a high number of defaulting employers, and weak enforcement of non-compliance with the Pension Act.