President Muhammadu Buhari has unveiled a Micro Pension Plan for people operating in the informal sector of the economy, even as he promised to halt the rot in the nation’s pension system.
Such people will now, courtesy of the new scheme, draw pension after eventual retirement from active work. Before now, there is no pension scheme for Nigerians in the informal sector, which results in many unable to take care of themselves at old age.
The President, while unveiling the pension plan on in Abuja, said that those in the informal sector needed to be captured in the plan just like those in the formal sector.
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The Micro Pension Plan targets the significant majority of Nigeria’s working population who operate in the informal sector.
With an estimated 80 million people working in the informal sector of the economy, the Micro Pension Plan would take care of participants from various informal sector workers including market women, members of the National Union of Road Transport Workers, and members of textile, garment and tailoring associations.
Others are tricycle operators and Okada Riders Associations, butchers associations, workers in the movie and performing arts industry, mechanics and other workers in the automotive industry and single professionals like lawyers, accountants and many others.
Buhari said his administration understood the importance of the pension industry, adding that this was why the Micro Pension Plan was conceived so that operators in the informal sector would have something to fall back on when they retire from active service.
He added that despite its lean resources, the Federal Government would continue to support the National Pension Commission in order to successfully implement the initiative.
As part of the government’s support to the initiative, he directed that the Financial System Strategy 2020 should support the plan through its financial inclusion programme.
Buhari said that in the last three years, his administration had provided grants, technical support and loans to small businesses, noting that through such interventions, the lifestyle of many people had changed for the better.
Having achieved so much with making the business environment-friendly for businesses, the President said it was imperative to have a social protection plan in form of pension for traders, farmers, and tailors, among others, operating in the informal sector of the economy.