By Newsday Reporter
Contractors across the country have raised concerns over persistent delays in the issuance of Pension Compliance Certificates by the National Pension Commission (PenCom), saying the situation is preventing many qualified companies from participating in contract tenders.
Some of the affected contractors who spoke to Newsday said their companies have consistently remitted monthly pension contributions for their employees since last year and applied for Pension Compliance Certificates in January this year. According to them, the contributions were duly paid through their Pension Fund Administrators (PFAs), while all required documents were submitted to PenCom for the issuance of the certificates.
Despite meeting the stipulated requirements, they said several companies are yet to receive their Pension Compliance Certificates, a mandatory document for bidding for many government contracts.
The contractors also alleged that PenCom recently introduced a new online application platform that has remained inaccessible to many users. They claimed that the previous platform, through which applicants could monitor the status of their pending applications, was shut down before the new system became fully functional, leaving many companies unable to track the progress of their applications.
The contractors described the situation as frustrating and detrimental to their businesses, noting that they risk losing valuable contract opportunities because they cannot complete the tender process without the certificates.
“It has become very frustrating to obtain a Pension Compliance Certificate from PenCom. We have fulfilled all the requirements, yet the certificates have not been issued. The new application portal is not accessible, and the old one has been shut down, making it impossible for us to monitor our pending applications,” one contractor told Newsday.
Efforts by Newsday to obtain comments from the National Pension Commission were unsuccessful. Calls placed to the commission’s official telephone line, 07015445557, were not answered as of the time this report was filed.
The affected contractors appealed to PenCom to urgently address the backlog, restore access to application tracking, and expedite the issuance of Pension Compliance Certificates to enable compliant companies to participate in ongoing procurement processes without further delays.