Joy Agwunobi
The National Pension Commission (PenCom) has announced the recovery of N4.57 billion from employers that defaulted in remitting workers’ retirement savings between the first quarter of 2024 and the first quarter of 2025.
This disclosure was made in Lagos by Oguche Agudah, chief executive officer of the Pension Fund Operators Association of Nigeria (PenOp), during a media briefing on the state of compliance in the pension industry.
According to Agudah, the recoveries comprised N2.12 billion in outstanding pension contributions and an additional N2.45 billion in penalties imposed on erring companies. He explained that the recoveries came from 138 employers identified through PenCom’s enforcement efforts.
“This is evidence that enforcement continues to safeguard workers’ retirement savings,” he said. “But the bigger picture is the need to shift from episodic crackdowns to a preventive regime—where real-time monitoring of remittances, stricter sanctions for chronic defaulters, and sustained employer education reduce repeat offenses.”
Agudah stressed that the ultimate goal was not just to generate recovery figures but to create a system with fewer defaults, faster remittances, and a more predictable Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS). He also urged employees to be aware of their rights, noting that any employer with three or more staff is legally mandated to remit pension contributions, and workers can report violations through existing whistleblowing channels.
A breakdown of the recoveries showed that the first quarter of 2024 accounted for the largest recovery, with N751.51 million in contributions and N1.44 billion in penalties recouped. Although the pace of recoveries slowed in mid-2024, enforcement activities picked up in the last quarter of the year and gained even stronger traction in the first quarter of 2025.
Within that period, PenCom recovered N972.12 million in contributions and N381.88 million in penalties from 19 employers. While the first quarter of 2025 did not post the highest overall figures, Agudah noted that it delivered the strongest principal contribution recovery, averaging N71 million per employer compared with about N63 million per employer recorded in the same period of 2024.
He observed that this pattern suggested PenCom was now dealing with larger and more material cases, even as the total number of defaulting employers declined.
