Workers from different sectors of the economy have been expressing their reservations about the new contributory pension scheme established by the Pension Reform Act 2004. The new scheme replaces the old Pay-As-You-Go Defined Benefits scheme which was operational when the Pension Act 1990 still held sway.

At a workshop organised by the Campaign for Democratic and Workers Rights (CDWR), non governmental organisation, recently in Lagos, the government was called upon to suspend the implementation and allow the trade unions to take over the management of the scheme.

CDWR's Chairman, Rufus Olasesan, said Nigerians have every reason to be afraid of the new pension scheme because when a certain percentage of workers salaries were deducted in the past for several years with a promise that the workers would be entitled to their own houses after retirement, the promise was never fulfilled.

When the organisation examined the new pension scheme critically, he pointed out that it discovered that government only pretends to have good plans for the workers, noting that sooner than later, the new scheme might go the way of the Nigerian Social Insurance Trust Fund (NSITF).

The CDWR also posited that the scheme is a ploy by the government to shy away from its responsibility to the Nigerian workers by systematically withdrawing from the payment of both gratuity and pension allowance. What is happening at the present, he lamented means that the individual is being made to contribute for his pension from a salary which was not originally enough to take care of their individual needs.

Olasesan maintained that the scheme might not work out until government allows the workers to manage it themselves rather than just asking a group of politicians to pull resources together to form a Pension Fund Administrator (PFA).

Dr. Niran Okewole, the General Secretary, National Association of Resident Doctor (NARD) who was also a guest speaker, stated that the new pension scheme is just a means for the government to rake money from the Nigerian workers.

In the same vein, Abiodun Aremu, Executive Director, Kolagbodi Memorial Foundation (KMF), said that living pension that is accrued to pensioners can only come from a living wage.

He said, "giving past experiences, it has gone beyond the question of just setting up an Act, it challenges us on how we take care of the aged, and I align myself with the provision of the constitution particularly the one that relate to the economy objective of government that government shall be responsible in terms of old age care and pension.

"What that means is that beyond the right of everybody who has made economic contribution in one work force or the other are being paid their entitlement as at when due.

"There is a need for us to institute a social security system that can take care of not only the aged but also the disable in the society in terms of their access to health care, and some other basic needs that are required at old age".

However, Aremu said that the government should earmark 10 percent of the national and the state budget which should be dedicated to resolving some of the problems accrued to old aged people, particularly, he said, when the government had admitted of owing arrears of pension of over N3 trillion.

He further called on the National Pension Commission to go beyond stipulating a capital base for both the PFA and the Pension Fund Custodian (PFC), saying "because in the past we have heard some of those funds being mismanaged."