331,003 People Withdraws N116.87bn from Retirement Savings Accounts

The rising unemployment rate has forced 331,003 former employees that lost their jobs –but unable to secure another job within four months — to withdraw a total sum of N116.87 billion from their Retirement Savings Accounts under the Contributory Pension Scheme.

Nigeria’s unemployment rate rose to 27.1 percent in the second quarter of 2020, representing a total of 21.8 million people without jobs.

The N116.87 billion constituted 25 percent of the total balance in their RSAs with Pension Fund Administrators as at the end of Q3 2019.

This was disclosed by the National Pension Commission in its 2019 third quarter was released on Monday.

Part of the report read, “Approval was granted for payment of N3.67bn 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 four months of disengagement.

“The cumulative total number of RSA holders who were paid benefits for temporary loss of job was 331,003 and were paid a total of N116.88bn, being 25 per cent of the balances of their RSAs as prescribed by the Pension Reform Act 2014.

“A further analysis showed that the private sector accounted for 95.17 per cent of those who benefitted from these payments while the public sector accounted for 4.83 per cent.”