The National Pension Commission (Pencom) says about 331,003 retirement savings account holders who lost their jobs recently have withdrawn about N116.88 billion from their contributions.
This was contained in the third quarter 2019 report recently released by the Commission. Section 7 subsection 2 of the 2014 Pension Reform Act gives room for a worker who voluntarily retires, resigns or sacked from paid employment to access 25 percent of his RSA if he is unable to get another job after four months.
In the third quarter of 2019 alone, Pencom said 6,862 RSA holders under the age of 50 were paid N3.67 billion. Of this figure, 6,034 were from the private sector, 701 from the states public sector and 127 were former federal employees.
“Approval was granted for payment of N3.67 billion to 6,862 RSA holders who were under the age of 50 years and were disengaged from work and unable to secure another job within 4 months of disengagement,” the report read.