‘BPOPF Board, CEO earning peanuts’
In the wake of an uproar occasioned by revelation of remunerations of Botswana Public Officers Pension Fund (BPOPF) Board of Trustees and Chief Executive Officer, economist Louis Sibanda has shot down claims that they are overpaid. Social media streets were abuzz this week following circulation of an image showing that the BPOPF board chairman, Solomon Mantswe pocketed P353 600.00 from 23 meetings he attended. The lowest earner of the 10 trustees was Topias Marenga who earned P254 918.00 from 23 meetings. The total remuneration paid to trustees during the year was P3,002,695 compared to P 1,792,090 from year ending 2021 and consisted of fixed trustees’ allowances and retainer fees.
On the other hand, it was revealed that CEO Moemedi Malindah earned a total of P2 332 515.35. The total remuneration paid to senior management during the year was P12,745,777.00 from P10,090,989.00 paid in 2021.
“Board remunerations are usually in line with responsibilities. With BPOPF managing assets valued at over P90 billion, these are peanuts. This is almost half of the country’s economy of P200 billion. You should bear in mind that these sittings are not just Board sittings. They also sit in the various committees which are at times forced to meet a lot of times while the Board would sit around four times in a year,” said Sibanda.
He further said the CEO’s remuneration which includes salaries and allowances was also way too low. “The CEO is paid around P95 000.00 in cash monthly and the rest comes in allowances and other benefits. This is way too little looking at the size of the fund he is managing compared to other principal officers in many parastatals and corporates in the country. You cannot ignore all these factors and say people are overpaid,” he said. On whether the Board members were deserving of the fees, Sibanda said it does not matter whether they are qualified or not. “If a pay structure is in place, it has to be followed. The set allowances would be given to anybody nominated to be on the Board. It is for the appointing authorities (government and unions) to ensure that they appoint people who will add value.
As much as some might feel 87% is not good enough, it is an impressive feat,” he said. According to the BPOPF annual report, the Board of Trustees is charged with the fiduciary duty to ensure that the Fund’s strategy remains relevant, in line with its short-, medium and long-term strategic objectives to create value for the members of the Fund. “Theirs is a fiduciary role which entails making decisions for an on behalf of the members and ensuring that the overall performance of the Fund exceeds the expectations of the members. The Board operates in terms of a formal Board Charter that is periodically reviewed and adopted whose objective is to regulate its conduct of business and ensure that the Trustees are aware of their individual and collective duties and responsibilities.” The Board conducts an annual self-assessment through an independently facilitated process in order to review its efficacy and identify areas of improvement amongst others. The review entailed appraising and rating the performance of the Chairman as the leader of the Board, the Board as a collective, and the individual Trustees in line with the requirements set out in the Regulation 14 of the Retirement Funds Regulations, 2016. “The Board’s overall performance for the year under review was rated at 87%. The Independent Assessor concluded that overall, the Trustees are fully committed to ensuring effectiveness of the BPOPF’s governance, are well conversant with and performed their responsibilities as could reasonably be expected of them as a Board,” reads the report.
It was however noted that there were some areas of improvement identified from the 2022 assessments which require the Board to consider, and these included, amongst others; the need for timely succession planning and strategy around the Trustees who will be retiring within 12 months, including the current Chairperson; the effectiveness of the strategy planning process, board meetings and continuous professional development; the need to review and improve the Fund’s ICT and Cybercrime prevention strategies; to ensure that the Fund has a solid, clear and transparent group governance model and the need for continuous re-engineering of processes to ensure the sustainability of the Fund’s compliance record. In his words, Mantswe said despite disruptions and tough economic environment, they have remained resolute and focused on their mandate and the fund’s key objective of sustainably growing member funds in the interest of our members and beneficiaries. “Our Assets Under Management grew by 7.8 percent from P83.6 billion in 2021 to P90.1 by March 2022, which I consider to be a positive reflection of a robust investment strategy and well-balanced portfolio. The Fund has declared a final interest rate of 5.8 percent for the active and deferred members, 4.9 percent for profit pensioners and 6.3 percent for the pre-retirement switch portfolio. Overall, the Fund remains in a financially sound condition and able to meet its obligations at a funding level of 101.7% compared to 100.5% in March 2021,” he wrote.