Pension trouble!!!

From Page 1

They charged that individuals behind the illegal externalisation of US$ 40 million from the fund must be held accountable for the malfeasance adding that it would be unfair that the culprits, who pocketed K59 million each in administrative fees, go scot-free for their mess.

They said the fund managers, Benefits Consulting Services Limited and African Life Financial Services Limited, externalised funds and invested in the BIFM World Equity Fund and Blackrock Global Income Fund without Trustees’ knowledge or authorisation, hence the need to compel them to pay.

Speaking to the Daily Nation yesterday, some of the trustees who were unceremoniously hounded out of the Fund for demanding transparency and accountability, appealed to Government to compel the two companies to pay the fine using their own money. “We appreciate the fact that the Fund has been fined for fraudulent activities but this money should not come from the Fund but the Fund managers, Benefits Consulting Services Limited and African Life Financial Services who created this mess.

“The Fund managers did not get permission from the trustees when externalising the money and even went ahead to invest in offshore accounts without authorisation from the Ministry of Finance,” one of the sources said.

They demanded that Government must pay due diligence to profits which the two companies may have made using the fund from other unauthorised offshore investments.

“Government must further follow up the profits recouped from these investments and further investigate if there were other such investments which were not discovered because this could just be a tip of the iceberg. There could be more unauthorised investments in other countries from which these companies are getting a fortune for themselves at the expense of retirees,” one of the trustees said.

This week, Finance Minister Margaret Mwanakatwe disclosed that Saturnia has been fined K2.37m by Government for externalising US$4m to offshore investment accounts without the permission from her ministry.

Ms. Mwanakatwe further confirmed that the money, which Saturnia had externalised and invested in offshore accounts had been retrieved.

Pension schemes are under Statutory Instrument No. 141 of 2011 allowed to invest in offshore accounts but with the approval of the Minister of Finance.

Section 11 (1) of the SI states that “a pension may invest not more than thirty percent of its funds outside the Republic as may be authorised by the Minister under the Act.”