13022020

When a PFA goes beyond
the call of duty
WHEN the Nigeria Police Force, NPF,
Pensions Limited came on board six
years ago, the idea was to have a Pension Fund
Administrator, PFA, exclusively responsible for
pension assets of all police personnel,
according to the Pension Reform Act, PRA
2014. Coming after 20 other PFAs had been
up and running, it was not going to be easy. But
it was a child of necessity. Before 2014,
policemen were scattered in all the other 20
PFAs before the police authorities requested
exemption from the contributory pension
scheme. But the Federal Government
demurred, insisting that the police institution
was so big that it was not in the best interest of
the country to let policemen out of the pension
loop. So, NPF Pensions Limited was a
compromise whereby instead of letting the
police exit the pension scheme, the National
Pension Commission (PenCom) in 2014
licensed a PFA exclusively dedicated to serve
the police with a vision “to be the benchmark
in Pension Fund Administration in Nigeria”.
Its mission: “To provide quality customer and
financial advisory services to stakeholders and
adopt investment strategies that would yield
the best possible returns on their pension
assets”, was even more ambitious. Tapping Dr.
Hamza Bokki, a man with decades of
experience in investment banking, corporate
governance and human resource
management, to be the pioneer managing
director was, in itself, a bold statement.
It was going to require a team prepared to
think out of the axiomatic box to successfully
manage the pension assets of about 370,000
policemen. Six years after, the jury is in that
despite the constraints, NPF Pensions has
largely delivered on its mandate. Prior to its
establishment, a large number of policemen
on the contributory pension scheme were
neither receiving statements on their
Retirement Savings Accounts, RSA, nor had
any communication with the PFAs, and,
therefore, didn’t know what was happening to
their accounts.
So, the first task of the new PFA was to get in
touch with their clients by locating policemen
wherever they were in Nigeria. Offices were
set up in all the 56 police formations and
commands across the country. Working also
through the police pension
offices and six regional
offices with pension desk
officers, NPF Pensions
took their services directly
to the officers wherever
they are located.
To ensure that issues are
addressed instantly, all the
62 offices are online, real
time. The result is that
whatever
the
management is doing at
the head office, the
Many
policemen
tend not to
give a
thought to life
after
retirement
when they
are still in
service
representatives can
equally do on the field. It was a strategic move
that not only eased the access of police officers
to information, but also dramatically eased
the stress of documentation by creating
awareness. Any other PFA would have been
contented with the structures already put in
place but not one to which going above and
beyond the call of duty in satisfying its clients
has become an article of faith. Thus NPF
Pensions initiated annual pre-retirement
seminars for retirees. The 2020 edition kicked
off in Lagos (South West) on Monday February
3, and later moved to Port Harcourt for the
South South zone. Next week, the train will
move to Kano (North West) and Owerri (South
East) before anchoring in the North East and
North Central. Going by the response from
the audience in Lagos, the seminars will
achieve the purpose. Retiring police officers
asked the questions that most concentrate their
minds. The idea, Dr. Bokki explains, is to
prepare police officers that are due to retire in
2020 by interacting with them physically to
acquaint them with their rights, entitlements
and obligations before and after retirement.
To access their pension funds after retirement,
they must have completed Data Recapture
are still issues, the main
elephant in the room being the delay in the
payment of pension to retired officers due to
the inability of the government to release the
accrued benefits of the retirees since January
2019. The contributory pension scheme
comprises 7.5 per cent deducted from the
salary of a public servant and the counterpart
7.5 per cent contributed by the employer,
which in this case is the government and the
accrued rights, derived from the service such
an officer rendered from before the time of
enrollment in the pension scheme. So, while
the deductions and contributions are paid
monthly into the RSA and officers get their
statement of account every month, the accrued
rights is only paid by the government when
an officer serves notice of retirement.
The Board of NPF Pensions Limited
approved a N400 million annual Retiree
Resettlement Support Scheme in 2017 to cater
for retirees while awaiting their pension.
Colossal as this sum is, it was still scaled up to
N450 million in 2018 and it is paid retirees
gratis to alleviate their suffering. Explaining
the reason behind the move, Dr. Bokki said,
“It is a corporate social responsibility scheme
that NPF Pensions has instituted. It is coming
from our own internal funds. From the income
we make, we expend N450 million and give
it free to police officers.
“No other PFA is doing that and this is
because we have a unique constituency. Most
of the police officers live in the barracks and
if there is any delay in the payment of accrued
rights, they go into distress as soon as they
leave service.” But even when the pension is
eventually paid, the amount is so paltry. Most
of the officers at the pre-retirement seminar
in Lagos lamented very low balances in their
accounts. Dr. Bokki said it is because
“historically, police salaries have been low”.
And since pension is a function of
contribution, it has to be paltry because the
salaries from which the contributions are
taken are low.
Culture
of savings
Exercise, DRE, and
other National Pension
Commission (PenCom)
verification exercises.
Many policemen wait
until after their exit from
service before
embarking on the
documentation. Of
course, this delays
payment of pension. But
despite all these
proactive moves, there
Here again, NPF Pensions, going above and
beyond the call of duty, has appealed to the
government to pay police retirees a separate
gratuity for services rendered to country so
that they can be brought at par with
colleagues and peers in the public service.
The appeal, fully supported by the police
apparatchik, is pending before the Presidency.
But NPF Pensions is doing a lot more than
advocacy. Many policemen tend not to give a
thought to life after retirement when they are
still in service. There is no preparation for the
day which will surely come after either 35
years in service or on attainment of 60 years
of age.
Living in the barracks, most policemen lack
the culture of savings and while in service,
they hardly can afford the time to develop
other competencies that will put them in good
stead when they drop their uniform due to
demands of the profession. The consequence
is that life after retirement becomes a
drudgery at best, or at worst a death sentence,
literally. Here again, the PFA steps in. The
seminar partly addressed this fundamental
issue. “We have been trying to prepare the
policemen to say, retirement is real, start early
to prepare for it. At least five years, ten years
before retirement, you should start planning.
“Where do you plan to live after retirement?
What are you going to do in retirement? You
cannot just sit down doing nothing because
after retirement, you are still useful to your
country, you are still useful to your
community. You can engage in a lot of lawful
things in retirement. You can engage in
farming, in training, in consultancy services,
whatever you want to do,” Dr. Bokki said in
Lagos. That message will resonate across the
country in the coming weeks as the preretirement
train moves nationwide.
The good thing, as Bokki noted, is that the
message is beginning to sink in. “Most of them
are listening now,” he enthuses.
Vanguard, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2020 — 17
Hunger stalks Southern Africa
as climate crisis deepens
THE spectre of want
is haunting Zimbabwe,
Zambia and South
Africa as they grapple
with a long and devastating
drought.
AFP reporters who travelled
across the three
countries saw widespread
suffering in rural areas
where successive harvests
have been hit by
lack of rain or shortened
rainfall seasons.
Across the 16-nation
southern African region,
45 million people are
“gravely food insecure,”
the World Food Programme
(WFP) said on
January 16. In some re-
Brexit: EU Parliament makes tough
demands for talks
THE European Parlia
ment has approved a
tough opening position for
talks with the UK on its future
relationship with the
EU.
MEPs called on the UK
to follow EU policies in a
host of areas as the price
for an ambitious free trade
deal.
These range from chemicals
regulation to climate
change, food labelling and
subsidies for companies.
This should be with “a
view to dynamic alignment”
- code for the UK
adopting European rules as
they are introduced.
The wide-ranging resolution
also called for measures
to ensure that Brexit does
not cause gender discrimination,
for a crackdown on
tax havens with links to the
UK, and for a joint UK-EU
position at the upcoming
UN climate conference in
Glasgow in November.
It’s an attempt to influence
the detailed instructions
for the EU’s chief ne-
gions, the drought is
three years old — in others,
five.
In the Zambian village
of Simumbwe, hundreds
waited for food to be distributed
by the NGO
World Vision and the UN.
“The children ask me:
‘What are we going to
eat?’” said Loveness Haneumba,
a mother of five.
“I answer: ‘Just wait. Let
me look around’.”
A teacher, Teddy Siafweba,
said about 15 children
in his class were
absent that day because
of hunger. In the classroom
next door, about 30
were missing — nearly
THE UN human rights
office has issued a
long-awaited report on companies
linked to Jewish settlements
in the Israeli-occupied
West Bank.
The report names 112 business
entities the office says
it has reasonable grounds to
conclude have been involved
in activities related to settlements.
They include Airbnb,
Booking.com, Expedia
Group and Motorola Solutions.
The Palestinians said
the report was a “victory for
Nissan files $90m suit against
former chairman Ghosn
JAPANESE car giant
Nissan yesterday filed
a civil lawsuit to reclaim
some 10 billion yen ($90
million) from former chairman
Carlos Ghosn for
what it called “years of his
misconduct and fraudulent
activity”.
The 65-year-old faces
multiple charges of financial
misconduct in Japan
but fled to Lebanon before
he could face trial. He denies
any wrongdoing.
Nissan said the damages
had been calculated on the
basis of the cost to the firm
of Ghosn’s “corrupt practices”.
It accused Ghosn
of “the use of overseas residential
property without
paying rent, private use of
corporate jets, payments to
his sister, payments to his
personal lawyer in Lebanon”.
It said the amount was
likely to rise and added that
the company would also
half of the rollcall of 70.
In South Africa’s Northern
Cape province, at the
gateway of the Kalahari
desert, the wild animals
are used to extreme temperatures
but even they
are succumbing to the
conditions.
According to Wildlife
Ranching South Africa,
two-thirds of wild animals
in the province have died
in the last three years. In
two years, half of the
4,500 buffaloes, hippopotamuses
and kudus at the
Thuru Lodge game farm
near Groblershoop have
disappeared.
gotiator Michel Barnier -
“the mandate” - currently
being discussed by the
European Commission
and the governments of
the EU’s 27 member states.
It’s also the latest example
of the mandate being
toughened up as it passes
from institution to institution
in the EU.
When Mr Barnier published
a first draft in early
February, there was no
mention of alignment and
definitely not the automatic
kind. Then a new version
emerged that had
been tweaked by diplomats
from national governments.
UN lists 112 businesses
linked to Israeli settlements
seek to sue Ghosn for
“groundless and defamatory
remarks” he made
when he briefed the media
in Lebanon.
Once hailed as a corporate
saviour for rescuing
Nissan from the brink of
bankruptcy, Ghosn was
facing a trial in Japan over
a series of alleged crimes,
including under-reporting
his compensation to the
tune of around $85 million.
Ghosn spent more than
100 days in detention in Japan
after his sudden November
2018 arrest, but
launched an audacious escape
plan while out on bail
in Tokyo and managed to
travel to Lebanon appar
He believes Nissan
turned on him because executives
there were concerned
he was moving the
firm closer to French partner
Renault, part of a threeway
alliance with Mitsubishi
Motors.
international law”, but Israel
called it “shameful”.
About 600,000 Jews live in
about 140 settlements built
since Israel’s occupation of
the West Bank and East
Jerusalem in 1967. The settlements
are widely considered
illegal under international
law, though Israel has
always disputed this.
The Palestinians have long
called for the removal of the
settlements, arguing that
their presence on land they
claim for a future independent
Palestinian state makes
it almost impossible to make
such a state a reality.
Last month, US President
Donald Trump unveiled a
peace plan that may pave
the way for Israel annexing
the settlements.
In an address to the UN
Security Council on Tuesday,
Palestinian Authority President
Mahmoud Abbas reiterated
his rejection of Mr
Trump’s plan, describing the
proposed Palestinian state as
looking “like a Swiss
cheese”.
But Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu
said it was “the best plan
that exists for the Middle
East... and for the State of
Israel and for the Palestinians,
too”.
In 2016, the UN Human
Rights Council mandated
the Office of the High Commissioner
for Human Rights
(OHCHR) to produce a database
of companies involved
in specific activities
relating to settlements.