PenCom plans summit to discuss Africa’s infrastructure, funds challenges

IN a bid to address Africa’s infrastructural and pension funds challenges, National Pension Commission, will hold a two-day summit that will shed more light on the issue of sustainability in the investment of pension funds and frameworks that needed to be developed to achieve wider scope.

Director-General of the commission, Chinelo Anohu-Amazu, speaking in Lagos, said the 2nd edition of World Pension Summit ‘Africa Special’ is scheduled to hold on October 5th and 6th at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel, Abuja, with the theme: “Building Sustainable Pension Systems in Africa.”

Anohu-Amazu said the 2nd edition of the summit promises to harness African talents in pensions and would provide a platform for pension regulators and operators in Africa to brace up to the challenges of positively contributing to the socio-economic growth of the continent, whilst also ensuring that retirement benefits are paid as and when due.

Besides, the DG also said that at the summit, there would be the ‘The Africa Pension Awards’, which she said been designed to recognise excellence, achievement and commitment to the development of the African pensions industry, in order to entrench good and initiative practices in pension administration, with particular bias for the Contributory Pension Scheme, amongst African countries.

She informed that the inaugural Africa Pension award is scheduled to be one of the major events of this year’s edition of the World Pension Summit ‘Africa Special’, which is aimed at creating an opportunity for the continent to benchmark the progress recorded in the development of their respective pension industries, while fostering positive local and global perception of the African pension industry.

According to her, the award will feature three categories, including governance, pension coverage and socio-economic impact, which are meant to recognise innovation and outstanding achievements recorded by African countries in the governance of their pension scheme and their deployment of pension funds towards economic development and the promotion of robust financial systems.