The Director-General of the National Pension Commission, Omolola Oloworaran, has announced plans to remodel the micro pension scheme to enhance participation.
Oloworaran made this disclosure at the 2024 PenCom Media Conference held in Lagos.
Micro pensions are tailored for individuals in the informal sector, such as self-employed workers, traders, and artisans, who lack access to formal pension schemes.
She said, “What we are doing with a micro pension is treating it a little differently from how we were doing it before. As we know, the micro pension doesn’t resonate with everyone within the informal sector, and some operators have shared feedback about the players saying, ‘I’m not micro; I’m making millions in a month, and you want me to open a micro pension account.’ We want to rebrand the micro pension plan into a new one that will speak to every sector of the economy, including people who are at the bottom of the social strata.
“What we want to do is remodel the micro pension plan and let it speak to individuals in the informal sector directly, so whether you are a farmer, fashion designer, gatekeeper, etc., we will be meeting their needs with the products that will be coming out, and I’m sure we will be able to get more people in.”
She also mentioned that operators in the sector have not been promoting the micro pension scheme as effectively as needed.
“You’re right, operators are not driving it. I can understand the challenges that some of them have highlighted. When we finish revamping the scheme, I believe everyone will come on board to drive it. In addition to rebranding, we are also looking at the technology that can work for us. The numbers we are looking at are enormous. Right now, we have over 10 million contributors under the CPS in the formal sector, but under the informal sector, we have tens of millions of people.”
Based on the last numbers I saw, it was north of 70 million.
“If we can drive this micro pension, I expect us to go up to 20 million Nigerians getting on the scheme, and the only way we can do that is with technology. It is a lot of work we are going to do on that and working with the operators so that we can ensure that between now and next year, we have more contributors,” she said.
