Over 59,000 members of the Fiji National Provident Fund had zero balances in their account at the end of 2020.

In its 2020 Annual Report, FNPF says 59,508 members had no money in their account, while 186,592 have up to only $5000.

There were 114, 551 Fijians whose balances ranged between $5000 and $20,000, with 47,168 have up to $40,000 in their accounts.

31,380 people had had between $40k and $100,000 while 7063 have up to $250k.

Only 796 had balances ranging $250,000 to $500,000 and 217 had accumulated over $500,000.

FNPF Chief Executive, Jaoji Koroi, says the members need to make the most of saving their money.

“We have also put together a team to work with the members because to us our success is that when a member reaches the retirement age, he or she has the ability to look after themselves with these saving post-retirement. But it’s a long way to go, we still need to work with the members to make sure they have their long term views on savings.”

FNPF says more than 7000 pensioners received a total of $4.3million as a one-off COVID-19 relief payment in May 2020.