As of the end of October 2023, the total assets under the Contributory Pension Scheme amounted to N17.66 trillion.
On Sunday, figures from the National Pension Commission’s ‘Unaudited report on pension funds industry portfolio for the period ended October 31, 2023; Approved Existing Schemes, Closed Pension Fund Administrators, and RSA funds (including unremitted contributions @CBN & Legacy Funds)’ were revealed.
The findings show that N11.42tn of the assets were invested in Federal Government securities. Among other things, the assets were invested in state government securities, corporate debt securities, money market instruments, and mutual funds.
The Pension Fund Administrators stated that the industry recorded N7.98tn profit from investing contributions made by workers into their Retirement Savings Accounts under the CPS.
In a report from the Pension Fund Operators Association of Nigeria, the total funds under the CPS stood at 17.37tn as of the end of the second quarter of 2023. Contributions made by the workers from both private and public sectors stood at N9.37tn in the period under review.
The report titled, ‘At the dawn of 20 years of pension reform, what are the gains?’ and released by the Chief Executive Officer, PenOp, Mr Oguche Agudah, showed that workers’ contributions accounted for 54 per cent, while the return on investment accounted for 46 per cent of the entire pension funds as of the end of June 2023 from the beginning of the CPS in 2004.
Under the Pension Reform Act, the PFAs administer the funds, which are kept in the custody of the Pension Fund Custodians. In the reviewed investment regulations, PenCom stated that the PFAs must offer a multi-fund structure for the Retirement Savings Account.
