In a recent development . . .



Senate President David Mark yesterday lamented that about N2.94trillion that has accrued to the pension fund was not yielding any direct benefit to the nation’s economy due to poor management. The followed the second reading of a bill to Repeal the Pensions Reform Act 2004 and enact the Pension Reform Act 2013 in the Senate in Abuja. In the proposed law, employees contribution will be reviewed upwards. The Federal Government’s and the Federal Capital Territory’s contribution would be charged on the Consolidated Revenue Fund (CRF) of the Federation and that of the FCT respectively. Mark noted that the present administration of the nation’s pension fund, was superintended over by people without the requisite experiences.

He said, “I think the problem we have is that we have all sorts of rookies, people who have no idea about managing funds, let alone very huge pensions fund, going to manage our pension fund; and I think it is a very specialised area where you cannot just wake up tomorrow morning and be appointed to manage the pension fund, you will mismanage it.

“That is what I suspect has happened. The national budget is N4.9trillion; and we have money in the pension fund up to N2.9trillion; so you can imagine the amount of money at the disposal of few individuals who are not properly supervised, who had no training in the management, and who dipped their hands into it as and when they feel like.

“I think the essence of this reform is to make sure that people who are properly trained are put in charge of the pension fund and properly managed. There is hardly any pensioner in this country who is not going through hell.

Source

Life has ironies. If my memory and sources are true Senator David Mark presided over the communications ministry during IBB's regime. A regime that gravely mismanaged funds. It is said that he ran NITEL as a personal enterprise. Now he's lamenting over #2 trillion. What is needed is not lamenting but an effort to ensure those funds are well-managed. May I suggest he finds a means to regularly publish on dailies how the funds have accumulated and being disbursed. This should be legal given the FOI law. This will put the fund under much-needed public scrutiny and curtail plans to loot it. Unfortunately, my suggestion may be 'too tall' for him.