I love The Sun for its consistency, fearlessness – Anohu-Amazu, DG, Pencom, The Sun Public Service 2015 Award winner

From Isaac Anumihe, Abuja

Director General of National Pension Commission (Pencom), Mrs. Chinelo Anohu-Amazu, has praised The Sun for its consistency, fairness and fearlessness. This is coming at a time when she disclosed that the pension fund has hit N5.2 trillion.

Speaking when the management team of The Sun Publishing Limited visited in Abuja to present a letter, notifying her of The Sun Public Service Award 2015, which she won, Anohu-Amazu said going by the pedigree of The Sun, its awards are most welcome.

“We have followed The Sun for a while and I am impressed by its consistency. I am also impressed by the newspaper’s fairness and fearlessness. Indeed, The Sun is not averse to taking a different viewpoint from the rest,” she said.

The Director-General expressed delight for The Sun Public Service Award 2015, saying that the honour came “most unexpectedly. It was an honour I cherish.”

On the activities of the Pension Commission, Anohu-Amazu said much has been achieved with the reforms embarked upon in the last couple of years,

“We started this journey about 13 years ago, when I was working in the BPE and every enterprise we wanted to sell had a pension deficit. All the investors said it was either we excised the pension deficit or sold the companies for a pittance. So, the then DG of BPE, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, decided that we had to find a solution. And it was at his insistence that, together with the then President Olusegun Obasanjo, the pension initiative was born.

“There had been other efforts. So many people tried and proffered different things and the Fola Adeola Committee’s mandate was to collate all these efforts and synthesise them into one workable solution. We took it to President Obasanjo, and given his own stance, he pushed the reforms through. And that is when we had the 2014 Act that culminated into the setting up of the pension institution and the pension commission as a regulator.”

Earlier, the Managing Director/Editor-in-Chief of The Sun Publishing Limited, Mr. Eric Osagie, told the Pencom DG that she was chosen as winner of The Sun Public Service Award 2015 after a two-day debate by members of the newspapers’ Board of Editors.

Osagie said Anohu-Amazu’s emergence was in recognition of her remarkable achievements in ensuring a healthy pension scheme in the country.

“On assumption of office as DG, Pencom, you have successfully completed the process of a major review of pension reform 2014, which culminated in a executive bill, which has since been passed into law by the National Assembly. Pension fund has also experienced a steady growth under your leadership.”

The Sun MD said the Public Service category of The Sun Awards goes to “top public servants, who, in the spirit of national transformation, have demonstrated an uncommon character, passion, innovation and unalloyed commitment in service delivery and thereby rendering maximum benefit to the country. That is the category you have won.”

He asked the Pencom DG to personally attend the formal presentation of the award on February 20, 2016 in Lagos.

Others who accompanied Osagie to the presentation are Mr. Onuoha Ukeh, Editor, Daily Sun; Mr. Obioma Ogukwe, GM, Finance; Mrs. Neta Nwosu, GM, Marketing & Corporate Services and Editor, Nation’s Capital, Mr. Ikenna Emewu.

Culled from Sun