The National Pension Commission (PenCom) has recovered N4.57 billion from defaulting employers between the first quarter of 2024 and the first quarter of 2025.
Mr. Oguche Agudah, Chief Executive Officer of the Pension Fund Operators Association of Nigeria (PenOp), disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday in Lagos.
Agudah explained that the amount comprised N2.12 billion in outstanding pension contributions and N2.45 billion in penalties, recovered from 138 employers who failed to remit workers’ pension funds.
“This is evidence that enforcement continues to safeguard workers’ retirement savings,” he said.
He noted that the commission is moving from episodic crackdowns to stronger preventive measures, including tighter real-time remittance monitoring, stiffer sanctions for chronic defaulters, and enhanced employer education to curb repeat offences.
“The goal is not just big recovery headlines; it is fewer defaults, faster remittances, and a stronger, more predictable Contributory Pension Scheme,” he added.
Agudah reminded employers that organisations with three or more staff are legally required to remit pensions on behalf of their employees. He also urged workers to use whistleblowing channels to report non-compliant organisations.
Providing a breakdown of recoveries, he said the highest amount was recorded in the first quarter of 2024, when N751.51 million in contributions and N1.44 billion in penalties were recovered.
Although recoveries slowed in mid-2024, enforcement picked up towards the year’s end and rebounded in the first quarter of 2025, when PenCom recovered N972.12 million in contributions and N381.88 million in penalties from 19 employers.
He further noted that while the first quarter of 2025 was not the period with the highest overall recovery, it recorded the strongest principal contributions, averaging N71 million per employer compared with N63 million in the same quarter of 2024.
According to him, this trend suggests PenCom is increasingly addressing larger, more material cases, even as the number of defaulting employers continues to decline.
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