The popular and powerful adage “knowledge is power” has been traced back to the 15th century.  I consider myself fortunate to have learnt it early on when the emblem of my brand new primary school in Arandis, named after Rössing Uranium Mine, was unveiled in the early 80’s with this inscription. However, in recent times, this quote has been re-coined to “shared knowledge is power”. I cannot agree more with this, as it brings to mind the unfortunate state of ignorance about financial matters of the majority of members of pension funds in Namibia. Despite some initiatives, notably by the Financial Literacy Initiative (FLI) of the Ministry of Finance and NAMFISA’s consumer education campaign, I am afraid not much if anything at all seems to be done to improve the level of financial illiteracy amongst pension fund members.

The FLI that arguably may have reached the biggest audience, seems to focus mainly on personal and business finance, whilst NAMFISA’s consumer education campaign that one would have expected to deal more with pension funds, seems to have died a natural death. I would like to believe that for the majority of grassroots members of pension funds, their single biggest asset when they hang up their working tools to retire, would be their pension fund savings.  Pension fund concepts are probably amongst the most complex to understand and relate for many pension fund members. However, if pension fund assets amount to more than 70% of our country’s GDP, then the owners of these assets need to be made more knowledgeable about the workings of the vehicle hosting their largest single asset.

Now reading this you are probably thinking “yeah right, tell us how to improve their knowledge”, or “you try making members understand pension fund benefits and investments!” Well, I am not professing to have much needed answers, however first step is for pension fund stakeholders to recognise that not much has been done and resolve to do somewhat more than hitherto has been the case.

Over years of my experience with pension funds, I found that employers that take an active interest, place great value on pension funds as an extension of employee benefits and recognise it as key in attracting and retaining staff, tend to be more concerned about pension fund members’ need to understand the benefits offered. These employers in addition to their contributions to their employees’ pension fund would also employ a person(s) in their human resources team to look specifically after the affairs of the pension fund either as fund Principal Officer or assistant to the fund’s Principal Officer.

Members of funds would mostly trust their own colleague if they needed advice or need to be referred for advice on pension fund matters. If a person in such position builds up all required knowledge on the structure, workings and relevant laws applying to pension funds, he or she can become a key asset to an employer. With the trust the in-house person would automatically command amongst less literate members of the fund, I believe such a person can be the appropriate medium to educate members on matters concerning their fund and related employee benefits matters. This person has the added advantage that he or she better knows and understands the culture of the employer and other employer information that may be too sensitive to entrust to outside service providers and has access to various resources of the employer as may be needed in rendering a service to members of the fund. I believe investment in such a resource by the average size employer can thus be invaluable in increasing the level of financial literacy amongst pension fund members.

Marthinuz Fabianus is Deputy Managing Director at Retirement Fund Solutions. He graduated from Namibian University of Science & Technology with a Diploma in Commerce and Bachelors in Business Management. He completed a senior management development programme from University of Stellenbosch and various short courses including a Macro-economic policy course which he completed at the International Training Centre of the ILO in Turin, Italy. Marthinuz has 23 years industry experience.