Highest Paid Official Receives Less Than N1m Salary, PenCom Clarifies

James Emejo in Abuja

The National Pension Commission (PenCom) yesterday refuted allegations that the least employee of the commission earns a salary of N3 million per month, saying that the highest paid official earns less than a N1million a month.

In a statement issued by the management, PenCom further pointed out that the clarification became necessary against the backdrop of the false and misleading information on the compensation package of the commission, which was being circulated on traditional and social media.
The commission, therefore, appealed to the public to ignore the false and mischievous information on the staff compensation package, adding that PenCom has nothing to hide and will continue to run a transparent and accountable system.

PenCom said: “We understand that there is an element of mischief and possible blackmail on the commission’s compensation package.
“From our understanding, it appears someone calculated all staff costs, including training, staff exit benefit scheme, and employer’s pension contribution, and divided the total by the number of the commission’s employees and concluded that the least paid employee is on a monthly salary of N3 million. There is a clear difference between staff costs and staff salaries.”

The agency noted that the reports had fuelled all sorts of false allegations and unfair insinuations.
 The commission pointed out that right from its inception in 2004, the federal government mandated the board to adopt an employee compensation policy that favourably compares to comparator government bodies in the financial services sector, such as the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
It said Section 25(2)(b) of the Pension Reform Act 2014 also empowers the board of the commission to fix the remuneration, allowances, and benefits of the employees.

The statement added, “more so, the Presidential Committee on the Consolidation of Emoluments in the Public Sector headed by the late Chief Ernest Shonekan, former Head of the Interim National Government, made some recommendations which guide the PenCom Board in its compensation review exercises.
“One of the recommendations is that the pay structure of self-funded agencies should be benchmarked with their private sector comparators to ensure relativity in such agencies and attract and retain high-calibre professionals.”

It said, “The Shonekan Committee, which was set up by former President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2005, also recommended that the pay structure of regulatory agencies should be benchmarked against sectors they monitor to avoid regulatory capture and that an annual increase in pay should be undertaken to account for inflation/cost of living adjustment and establishments may strive to attain 50th percentile and above their comparators in the private sector.
“We made all these facts known in a recent submission to the House of Representatives Committee on Finance over the compensation package of the commission. We also stated that the last compensation package review was done in 2017 with the approval of the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (OSGF).

“No review has been done in the last five years and this has affected the ability of the commission to attract, hire and retain staff with competitive skills.
“The public is, therefore, implored to ignore the false and mischievous information on the staff compensation package. The commission has nothing to hide and will continue to run a transparent and accountable system.”