MONDAYBUSINESS

is nest out to address. Even if there are challenges with the scheme, I don’t think we should throw away the baby with the bath water. We should put the challenges on the table, discuss them and find solutions to them, but if we can’t find solutions to them today, we should continue to probe until we find the solution someday.

So, I don’t think their desire to exit the contributory pension scheme will bring to them any advantage over what they are currently enjoying.

Why has the micro-pension scheme not taken off?

There are a number of things, but paramount of those things is the issue of identity. Today, the contributory pension scheme envisages that the employer is enrolled in the scheme before their employees are able to register. If we have people who are professionals but do not have a formal means of practicing their profession, it behoves that we find ways that things will work; that is one.

Secondly, we are not structured to operate like a savings and loans scheme. In a savings and loans scheme, we will look at the money I generated yesterday and quickly run to the asusu and deposit some, and if need be, I will go back in the evening and collect that money because a need arises. If you make the PFAs like that, then we may not be able to operate.

However, at the same time, we have to recognise that we have to give them some flexibility. As we speak, the NPC has designed a pilot scheme and we believe the scheme will take off so that we learn from the experiences of the pilot scheme before it is implemented all over the country.

Some contributors are worried that return on investment is below the inflation rate. How do you see return on pension asset investment in relation to inflation?

We shouldn’t do things in half measures. You will also agree with me that there were years when inflation rate was in single digits and returns provided by PFAs were in double digits. In other words, what I am saying here is that it is important that we take inflation and returns over a reasonable period of time. This is more important because we are pension managers. By the time this scheme matures, and we have fresh graduates join the scheme and retire probably after 30 years of service, then you will be able to really measure because you will now take inflation over a 30-year period and compare it with returns over a 30-year period. That is why even our regulator today insists that on our websites, we compute and we have the three-year rolling average so that when people measure, they also consider the three-year inflation average. Believe you me, if you do that, if not all of us, most of us have done pretty well.

Is there improvement?

Yes, there is.

room for