Yemisi Izuora
As the Pension industry celebrates Compliance and Ethics week, Premium Pension Limited says conscious efforts should be made by operators to maintain safeguard measures put in place to protect pensioners money.
The company said it is set to hold her Compliance and Ethics Week in line with the Global Compliance and Ethics Week being celebrated this year.
The theme of the celebration is: “Provide, Protect and Prevent”, and it offers the company the opportunity to key into the global event in appreciation of its inestimable significance.
“We have declared the week as our Compliance and Ethics Week in conformity with global trend and also in line with our vision of being ‘The leading Pension Fund Administrator in Nigeria and a global player’” said the Company’s Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Wilson Ideva while flagging off a chain of events to underscore the week.
“This week will afford us the opportunity to review our compliance status in terms of mirroring the company’s set policies and meeting targets especially in the areas of investment, funds management, benefits and actuarial services and customer care and strict observance of rules and regulations to enable us exceed the expectations of all stakeholders including the regulatory body, the National Pension Commission (PenCom).”
Ideva further enjoined the staff on the need to make compliance an enduring culture of the company in order to sustain and even surpass the already enviable status of the company.
The company recently won awards on corporate governance and for driving inclusive coverage of pension at the last Africa Pension Awards during World Pension Summit- Africa Special.
“We are leaving no stone unturned to ensure that that we maintain our highly respectable position” said Mr. Kayode Akande, the Company’s Executive Director, Business Development and Investment.
“The level at which these awards have been given is quite significant and our continued identification with global best practice as represented by the
Global Compliance and Ethics Week would further project our company’s integrity and credibility.”
“Our goal is to highlight the importance of compliance and to focus specifically on the supporting role that compliance plays in various aspects of our business” added Mrs. Funmi Femi-Obalemo, the Company’s Chief Compliance Officer. “By extension, we wish to increase awareness in ways that reinforce not just specific rules and regulations, but an overall culture of compliance and ethics and commitment to good corporate citizenship.”
The Nigerian pension industry operates under necessary safeguards and conscious of the rising global concern about compliance. This is basically as a result of the rise in corporate corruption and increasing stringent legal requirements for business operations.
Also, the liquidation of several big organizations around the world and some distressed financial institutions in Nigeria over the years revealed the importance of compliance in any successful enterprise. The main objective of compliance in the Nigerian Pension Industry is making sure that the system is effective and efficient through ensuring adherence to rules and regulations aimed at providing sustainable pension to the deserving retired employees.
Premium Pension Limited is one of the pioneer and leading PFAs in the country registered after the enactment of the Pension Reform Act of 2004. The company has recorded a string of successes since then and now has Assets Under Management in excess of four hundred billion naira (N400, 000,000.00) with more than 744,000 Retirement Savings Account (RSA) holders.
The company has since inception paid out the sum of 112.9 billion naira to retirees and other RSA holders.