According to figures obtained by our correspondent on Tuesday, the amount is contained in the latest surveillance report conducted on the pension operators by the National Pension Commission.
“The compliance report showed some inconsistencies on the part of Pension Fund Administrators, which included un-reconciled and un-credited contributions that amounted to N8.367bn and N1.29bn, respectively,” PenCom stated.
The commission also said it discovered about 146 cases of unpaid benefits that had earlier been approved by the commission and wrong debit of N39m on some RSAs by a Pension Fund Custodian.
It, however, said it had forwarded compliance letters to the concerned operators regarding the listed inconsistencies.
Other issues observed in the compliance report were non-implementation of commitments made during examinations of operators; violation of the Pension Reform Act, 2004; violation of regulations, guidelines, circulars, and framework; and non-issuance of statements of account and Personal Identification Numbers to customers by some operators.
According to the commission, the need to ensure the safety of pension assets, fair returns on investment and sustainability of the industry necessitated the need to proactively regulate and supervise the pension industry in order to achieve the aims and objectives of the PRA 2004.
It stated that the supervisory approach rested on risk-based philosophy in order to cope with the challenges posed by the dynamics of the operating environment.
While commenting on risk management among the pension operators, PenCom said that during the third quarter of 2012, it observed some irregularities in the risk management reports submitted by operators.
These included unprocessed benefit applications and un-credited contributions by a PFC; discrepancies between contribution schedules and the payment instruments forwarded by some employers; delay in the payment of retirees’ benefits and non-compliance with the fund accounting guidelines by some operators; and Information and Communication Technology challenges that were related to core application software, servers and other support equipment.
Consequently, it said, letters had been sent to the affected operators to address the issues.
PenCom also observed the violation of the code of corporate governance for pension fund operators as issued by the commission.
Some of the violations observed were improper constitution of some statutory sub-committees; irregular board meetings; poor attendance at board meetings by members; and inconsistent procedure for conducting performance evaluation of the board, committees and directorate activities by pension fund operators.
It noted that the commission had forwarded letters to the concerned operators to bring the violations to the attention of their respective boards.
PenCom stated that it organised a workshop in Lagos for pension fund operators during the quarter.
It noted that the workshop addressed the activities of recovery agents and the role of operators in the recovery exercise.
The commission said the workshop afforded the operators the opportunity to make suggestions and comments on ways of improving the recovery process as well as seek clarifications on issues that would ensure the success of the agents.
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