Police seek 20% pension contribution from FG

The Nigeria Police Pensions Limited has proposed an increase in the Federal Government’s pension contribution for police personnel from 10 per cent to 20 per cent. It said the current contribution structure is inadequate to provide decent retirement benefits for officers after service. The Acting Managing Director of NPF Pensions Limited, Muhammad Dutse, disclosed this on Wednesday during a press conference in Abuja, where the company unveiled a digital platform designed to improve pension service delivery to police personnel nationwide. Dutse said the proposal had already been forwarded to President Bola Tinubu through the National Pension Commission as part of ongoing efforts to address the challenge of low pensions among retired police officers. “The proposition given to Mr President is to ensure that at least for police officers, the monthly contribution would be increased by the Federal Government from 10 to 20 per cent while they will still contribute eight per cent, making a total of 28 per cent,” he said. Dutse’s remarks came amid growing concerns over the welfare of retired police personnel. The PUNCH earlier reported that retired officers, under the aegis of the Police Retired Officers Forum of Nigeria, urged President Bola Tinubu to sign the Police Exit Bill into law, arguing that existing pension and gratuity payments were too meagre to support them in retirement. According to Dutse, the current proposal became necessary after successive reviews showed that existing contribution levels were insufficient to guarantee adequate pensions for retirees. He explained that when the Contributory Pension Scheme was introduced, both employers and employees contributed 7.5 per cent each, based on projections that the arrangement would be enough to sustain workers in retirement. He added that the enactment of the Pension Reform Act 2014 increased contributions to 10 per cent by employers and eight per cent by employees following concerns over the adequacy of pension benefits. “Ten years later, we realised that that is also not adequate. And that is what is affecting our retirees today,” Dutse said. He noted that the Pension Reform Act was currently undergoing another review and expressed optimism that the process would result in stronger measures to improve retirement benefits. According to him, increasing the government’s contribution to 20 per cent would significantly boost the Retirement Savings Account balances of police personnel and reduce the need for pension augmentation by the government after retirement. “That way, we believe in the near future,