The National Pensions Regulatory Authority, NPRA says it is subjecting the various schemes to a thorough process of verification, validation and due diligence to protect the interest of beneficiary workers and the economy as a whole.
The authority has begun transferring to approved schemes, the Tier 2 Pensions contributions from the Temporary Pension Fund Account, TPFA at the Bank of Ghana.
Only two schemes have however benefited from it so far – with over 100 applications and 18 schemes currently undergoing due diligence.
Corporate Affairs Manager at NPRA, Kwame Kissiedu told Joy Fm the process is rigorous enough.
“If a scheme makes an application to the authority, they first need to provide data on contributors that they are managing. By that, we mean not just the names but also their Social Security numbers because that’s the only way we can identify members of the scheme – that’s the verification. Then before we make a transfer, it means those contributors must have monies in the TPFA so the validation will ensure that we also have data on members of the scheme that have applied in our TPFA. Once that is established, the authorities will now invite the managers of the scheme and that is when we go through the due diligence on compliance process” he explained.
He would however neither reveal how much has so far accrued at the Bank of Ghana nor how much of that has been transferred to the 2 schemes that have satisfied all the relevant requirements. Meanwhile, he says the authority is satisfied with the process so far.
“If you may recall, we put out the invitation and even issued a guideline on the transfer way back in December 2014, so the approach was to handle it on a first-come first-served basis and after that it will depend on the capacity of the scheme or the trustee in person to successfully go through the processes. And of course in an industry like this, you will expect that you will have very good ones and others in between but I can say that the authority is happy with the process so far. If you look at the industry you can see that a lot of the employers have enrolled under the master trust scheme so if you do the math, you’ll see that the Corporate Trustees cover a lot of ground, the other employer sponsor schemes in the industry is very few” he added.
The NPRA initiated the transfer process by issuing the guidelines and inviting applications in December 2014 and it has expressed satisfaction with the implementation so far.