Head of Finance at Enterprise Trustees, Yaw Kusi Acheampong, has stated that new developments and interventions are underway to protect the assets of members amidst the ongoing financial crisis in the country.

He stated this during a webinar organized by Enterprise Trustees on the theme “State of the Financial Market and the Impact on Pension Funds”.

Speaking on the importance of creating key interventions, Mr. Kusi stated that, “Our objective as the leading private corporate trustee in Ghana is to help members secure their retirement income. But due to recent happenings in the financial sector and the recent agitations about the exclusion of pensioners’ funds in government’s Domestic Debt Exchange Programme (DDEP), it is mandatory to bring up solutions to curtail the situation and safeguard the funds of our members.”

He took the opportunity to educate the audience on various interventions the company has developed to safeguard pensions of clients and address its impact of the financial sector. He said, “Our schemes were performing so well because people were now looking to increase their provident fund and personal pension funds until the last quarter of 2022 when discussions surrounding DDEP commenced. Its negative impact was that clients started doing panic withdrawals which affected their retirement income and plans. As such, to ensure pensions assets are protected, we had to work with Fund Managers to review our investment strategy and investment holdings.”

“We started looking at alternative asset areas like private equities. Also, looking at the effect of the cedi depreciation, we have started looking at how to diversify our holdings by having dollar earning assets such as gold unit trust and Eurobonds across the globe to see how to safeguard the investments from the rapid cedi depreciation. Our board has also approved the need to diversify the scheme asset holdings to deliver solid and quality returns to clients,” he added.

Mr. Kusi expressed gratitude to the government for ring fencing the pensions of members as well as providing a solid governance structure to protect the assets of clients. He also advised employers to make the payment of Tier 2 a priority since it is mandatory.

He stated that, “Payment of Tier 2 are mandatory as such Enterprise Trustees engage with employers to make sure payments are done and support them during the process. We also engage with the National Pensions Regulatory Authority (NPRA), the industry regulator, to prosecute employers who do not comply with the law”.

Enterprise Trustees Ltd, the Pensions Management subsidiary of Enterprise Group Plc was incorporated on 8th November 2010 and was one of the first Corporate Trustees to be licensed in 2012 by the National Pensions Regulatory Authority (NPRA) as a private pension corporate trustee. With over 10 years’ experience in the private pensions space, Enterprise Trustees seeks to provide pension benefits to ensure retirement income security for all Ghanaians and to ensure that members receive their retirement and related benefits as and when due. The company achieved its feat due to the solid foundation put in place at the commencement of the private pensions business in Ghana thus identifying themselves as the best service providers in the industry.