NICO Pension Company worry over lack of ‘compliance’
NICO Pension Company a subsidiary of Malawi’s leading insurance company NICO Life which offers pension services product in the country has expressed concerned over lack of compliance among the employers which is affecting the running of pension administration services.
General Manager for NICO Pension, Gerald Chima said at Mount Soche Hotel in Blantyre during the opening of the two-day NICO Pension Services Seminar which was organised with the aim of engaging all NICO Pension members into a special interaction which was also considered as a platform for the company to give an opportunity to the employers in order to discuss issues and hear their concerns and brief them in terms of how the company manage their pensions as well as how their money is invested.
But in his remarks, Chima disclosed that while the company is proud that it is making strides they are also a number of challenges being faced by the service.
Chima said since the implementation of Pension Act in 2011 the performance has been impressive as the number of employers have been increasing each and every year.
However, Chima said though there is an increase of number but their main challenge is that they have some employers who are not complying in a number respects like failing to pay contributions on time and even not paying.
“As a company we are very concerned with such development therefore we’ve taken a step to make sure we deal with all the gaps which are affecting the process for managing the pension because we have discovered that all these problems are happening due to lack of proper information.
“We have a special NICO Pension team now which is ready to go out and meet members who have called us to go and do the presentation sessions about all the things around pension
administrations because our main target is to maintain the exiting relationship by equipping the employers with knowledge so that they can really understand and realise the goodness of NICO Pension,” said Chima.
One of the NICO Pension clients Joseph Mickson Msambo who is the headmaster of St. Charles Lwanga secondary school of Balaka hailed the pension scheme which he said has reduced the burden that the school used to have in terms of paying for the gratuity and other payments when one is leaving the institution since the responsibility has now gone to NICO Pension Company.
Over 100 NICO Pension clients from the southern region attended the seminar.
