By Sarah NEGEDU
The House of Representatives has expressed concerns over the failure of the six area councils in the FCT, to remit their pension contributions to the Area Council Staff Pension Board.
The lawmakers, through the House Committee on Area Councils and Ancillary Matters vowed to investigate the seeming discrepancies and delay in pension remittances, inspite the seven days prescribed for such remittance.
The resolution was adopted during a meeting between the committee and relevant agencies under its jurisdiction.
Chairman of the committee, Hon. Fred Agbedi, directed the concerned agency to provide comprehensive records of the pension remittances for review.
“Furnish us with the details so we can know why the area councils are defaulting in their remittance.
“Let someone move a motion for us to investigate the discrepancies and delay in area councils remitting because salaries are paid monthly.
“The committee should investigate the failure of the remittance from the area councils to the pension account,” Agbedi said.
The chairman therefore directed the clerk to write to all the area councils to furnish the committee with up-to-date remittances of pension contributions on behalf of their employees.
Agbedi added that the committee would embark on budget oversight of all the agencies ahead of their 2025 estimates.
The Director of the Board, Suleman Abdulrahman, told the committee the remittances were not frequent.
“By law and according to the pension reform act, each deduction from salaries in respect to pension is supposed to be remitted seven days after payment of salary, but unfortunately, at the area councils, that’s not what is happening. Sometimes, they owe two to three months before remittance.
“The staff pays their employee contribution, which is 8 percent and 10 percent for the employer. It is remitted to their PFA accordingly from the area councils,” he said.
On why the board received more than was appropriated for in 2024, the Director explained that the disparity was due to variations in salaries as a result of the change in minimum wage.
According to the documents submitted by the Board, the pensioner cost total appropriation was N131,148,262, but it received 151,137,417.
“The personnel cost of all FCT staff is centralised with the treasury department, and you are aware of the recent salary adjustments as a result of the minimum wage, which increased the total receipt. We are in touch with the treasury department to get the supplementary approval so that we can update our records.
“Principally, what we do is that we superintend over pension matters in all the six area councils and LEAs. Payment of monthly pensions and other benefits that accrue to our prospective retirees.
“Our summary of the budget performance for 2024 was we had a total of N1.1 billion, which was the ceiling, which consists of the recurrent, the personnel and overhead.
“The personnel cost, we have 115 percent budget performance. The overhead we have is 40 percent performance; we don’t have capital projects. It’s just a service organisation on the change of monthly pensions,” he said.
