Africa: A clarion call for sustainable quality pension service, administration

Pension managers and regulators in Nigeria and the rest of Africa have a responsibility to turn around the corner by not only sustaining the successes made in the last decade on pension transformation in the continent but also make it more inclusive to help Africa bridge the widening gap in old age poverty.

This has also become more important when you consider that a lot of countries are facing economic difficulties, which requires that more than ever, people must cultivate the culture of savings as part of a long term strategy to remain economically strong and above poverty.

This responsibility call was further reinforced at the last World Pension Summit- African Pension Awards held in Abuja, where pension operators and regulators in Africa were rewarded for service excellence and their contribution to development of the continent.
The award, which was more like a motivation to improve on service delivery and value creation for the citizenry brought to fore the need to bring on board the informal sector population where the vulnerable set of employed people are domiciled.
Besides that, there was great emphasis on transparency, corporate governance and trust as critical for sustainability and growth of the industry over a long time.

The awards ceremony which took place at the Transcrop Hilton Abuja saw players and regulators in African countries including Nigeria, Guinea Bissau, Zimbabwe, Ghana, Tanzania and Kenya went away with different awards categorized under- Corporate Governance; ICT Innovation; Risk Management; Wide Coverage and Inclusion; as well as Social Economic Impact.
Chinelo Anohu-Amazu, director general, National Pension Commission (PenCom) in her remarks said the Africa Pension Awards was conceptualized and designed to recognize excellence, achievements and commitments to the development of pensions and social security across the African continent.
The main objective of the Award she said is to create an opportunity for African countries to benchmark the progress made in the development of their respective pension and social security systems, while fostering positive local and global perception about these systems and the African concepts and capabilities.
“Indeed, the role of pension and social security systems transcend the payment of retirement benefits, to eradicating old age poverty, creation of employment and stimulating growth of local economies.” Today, pension and social security systems serve as catalysts for generating pool of long term investible funds that could be used to develop necessary ingredients for economic development such as infrastructure, she observed.
Amazu said that given the current global economic challenges occasioned by the drop in commodity prices, the funds generated under viable pension schemes have become veritable sources of financial intermediation in the efforts being made to diversify these economies towards economic growth.
She therefore noted that the Africa Pension Awards is a springboard for nurturing and promoting indigenous ideas for the development of sustainable pension and social security systems across the Region as well as realising the developmental goals of the jurisdictions.
I therefore congratulate those institutions that have been celebrated and encourage pension and social security institutions across the continent to showcase their ideas in the future editions of the Africa Pension Awards, not only for the award, but also to present achievements that other sister institutions can adopt, as the case may be, to improve their pension and social security systems
Olusegun Obasanjo, former President of Nigeria in his keynote speech at the opening session of the World Pension Summit: Pension Innovation: Africa Perspective, commended the progress made in transforming the pension system in Africa from largely non funded defined benefit schemes to funded contributory pension schemes.
Obasanjo stated that administrative structures should be put in place to ensure effective regulation and supervision of pension and social security systems with the aim of supporting the delivery of benefits in a secure, coordinated and pragmatic manner.
He stated that without doubt, the establishment of viable pension structures for the informal sector is essential, given that it constitutes 61 percent of the share of urban employment across the continent and is expected to rise due to population growth, fuelled by a projected decline in infant mortality.
“There is also the rise of urban population growth that is projected to reach 60 percent by 2050. These are sufficient incentives to push African governments and relevant authorities to make the drive for extension of universal coverage of pension and social security benefits, particularly to self-employed and informal sector employees, a major priority and their greatest social policy concern.
Obasanjo said further that the Sub-Saharan African Countries need to show more commitment in this regard given that the proportion of their citizens in vulnerable employment has attained an alarming 85 percent and 70 percent for women and men, respectively.
“As a consequence, therefore, pension and social security programmes must be reformed with a view to addressing these challenges.”
He said an emerging trend towards a new balance in the roles and objectives of pension and social security programmes is a parad