The National Pension Commission (PenCom) has declared that newspaper organizations must more than N1.3 billion in unpaid pension contributions for journalists.
This was revealed by the director general of Pencom, Mrs. Omolola Oloworaran, who led a delegation to the Press Council of Nigeria (NPC) in Abuja.
Mrs. Oloworan expressed concerns about the general breach of the 2014 Pension Reform Law (PRA 2014) among media establishments.
Consequently, Pencom and the Press Council of Nigeria have entered into a strategic collaboration to prevail in newspaper organizations to resolve the enormous pension responsibilities owed to their employees.
The PRA 2014 requires that employers send the monthly pension contributions in employee retirement savings accounts (RSA) no later than seven days after salary payments.
According to Pencom DG, many media houses have not adhered to this requirement, which led the commission to assign recovery agents to audit and determine their outstanding pension debts and their applicable fines.
Recently, the Pencom DG has led an impulse of aggressive execution, building strategic associations with regulatory agencies aimed at recovering unpaid pension contributions from organizations, which become billions of Naira.
However, the focus on the media sector is very significant, being the first time such high -level commitments are made to solve the persistent problem.
Oloworan said that journalists deserve to retire with dignity, since they play a vital role to guarantee responsibility in the public and private sectors, and that media organizations, in turn, must lead with the example fulfilling pension obligations with their employees.
She appealed to the Press Council of Nigeria to obtain support in the lawyer of compliance with compliance with the media sector, emphasizing that pension contributions are a critical safeguard against poverty of old age.
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“The pension is a vital component of our social security system, and even the government has begun to take it more seriously,” he added.
In response, the executive secretary of the Press Council of Nigeria, Dr. Dili Ezughah, promised the support and commitment of the Council to address the problem.
Dr. Ezughah said that Nigeria's Press Council would increase the matter to relevant stakeholders, including the union of journalists from Nigeria (NUJ) and the editors of Nigeria, highlighting the significant impact of unpaid pensions in the welfare of journalists.
It decreased the failure of media organizations to send pension contributions as a significant challenge in the Nigerian media industry.
The discussions culminated in the establishment of a Pencom Joint Working Group and the Nigerian Press Council in charge of guaranteeing a rapid resolution of the problem.
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