The National Pensions Regulatory Authority, NPRA has promised to ensure contributors gain maximum control over the management of their Pensions schemes. Trustees have up to the end of this month to submit to the authority applications for registration of the various pensions schemes under the Pensions Reforms. Only Corporate Trustees are however in business now as the authority has yet to approve any individual trustees. NPRA’s Board Chairman, Kwame Asante tells JOY BUSINESS five individuals have so far submitted applications for the trustee business but would all not qualify because of the lack of the requisite IT infrastructure. “Those would take time as we are at the very early stages and so lets us work with the approved corporate Trustees and as we develop we would bring on board the individuals” An individual Trustee however comprises not only an individual operating as a Trustee but also the Boards of Trustees of companies with Provident Funds. Mr. Asante says these would be approved during the ongoing registration exercise and ultimately empower contributors in the management of the schemes. “The members of a Provident Fund can become a part of the Board of the Trustees because we want the members to have membership of their schemes. The schemes being registered are going to be managed by a Board of Trustees. Even if it’s a Corporate Trustee that registered the scheme, it is required to engage at least one-third of the members - that is, one third of them have to be member-nominated. So if a scheme comes and all the Trustees are member nominated then we don’t have a problem because they can manage that scheme” he noted.