20 enterprises pay N211.5 million in penalties for missing pension payments.

Ibekimi Oriamaja Reports

In the second quarter of 2022, or Q2’22, twenty enterprises were required to pay around N211.5 million as cumulative interest charges on the unremitted pensions of their employees.

This is a decrease of 28.4% from the N295.5 million in comparable employer payments made in the first quarter of 2022, or Q1’22.

However, the National Pension Commission (PenCom), compared to the six suggested in Q1’22, recommended seven defaulting firms for suitable legal action in Q2’22.

Recall that the Pension Reform Act of 2014 calls for businesses to be required to contribute 10% of each employee’s monthly pay toward retirement benefits. However, a lot of employees are not following this law.

According to PenCom’s Q2″22 report, the defaulting employers paid a total of N517.7 million toward the principal balance due as of Q2’22.

From the N124.9 million paid as principle by defaulting employers in Q1’22, this indicates an increase of 314.4%.

The report stated: “In Q2’22, following the issuance of demand notices to defaulting employers whose pension liabilities were established by the Recovery Agents (RAs), the sum of N721.1 million was recovered from 20 defaulting employers during the quarter under review, where N517.7 million represented principal contribution and N211.5 million represented penalty. Following the failure of all administrative attempts to force 7 defaulting employers to comply, it has been suggested that appropriate legal action be taken against them.

“A total of N22.1 billion, comprising N11.4 billion of principle payments and N10.7 billion penalties was collected from defaulting employers from the beginning of the recovery process in June 2012 to 30 June 2022.”