Botswana Public Officers Pension Fund (BPOPF) says it will save approximately P41.53 million (NPV) over five year period from its restructuring process and implementation of the in-sourcing strategy, as it is parting ways with Alexander Forbes.
In an interview with Sunday Standard, BPOPF Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Boitumelo Molefe said that of the P 41.53 million, P21 million will be saved on fund administration while P20.5 million will be saved on investment management including investment management fees.
“There will be more job opportunities because we needed to staff ourselves especially on the administration side and we were able to rationalize within other departments,” said Molefe.
She said that it will be the first time for BPOPF to do administration and investment management on-house, adding that the restructuring process will have a very minimal impact on a number of employees exiting BPOPF. Molefe is optimistic that the development will go live beginning of April 2016.
BPOPF revealed that they have engaged KPMG to be the lead project consultant for the entire project, starting from its initiation to the end. She said another firm they engaged is Deloitte, which will be responsible for doing the human resource strategy and organizational structure. Another firm is Tsa Badiri Consultancy which is responsible for BPOPF remuneration structure.
“If we do such changes, we need to have in place encouraging structures for the employees. We must retain talent and reward good work. We must also attract a lot of training as we are going to be a service oriented organization,” said Molefe.
Asked on the main priority, Molefe stated that it is to offer a complete in house service to the members of BPOPF adding that offering the service at the lowest cost per member as they could go. She said that for their members, she believes that it does speak to their profitability of their portfolios.
She further said that they have been tusked with the responsibility for the operational, financial and performance management of the fund and ensuring the achievement of the funds’ goals and objectives whilst enabling the board of trustees to fulfil their governance function.
“Our members want assurance that their funds are being invested looking at the right risk management strategies to ensure that they get the best growth and yet at the lowest unit cost,” said Molefe.
Molefe is spearheading the largest pension fund in the country the fund has more than 150 000 members and primarily invests members’ funds in assets such as equity and property in the local market, emerging markets and developing markets. The fund has reached yet an achievement of a record P 50.9 billion in March 2015.
BPOPF CEO Molefe acknowledged the challenges around the in sourcing strategy bringing everything in house which started in April 2015.
“This project had long started and the organization has been on a tough journey doing the business cases, getting the board to understand and doing approvals and the tail end is where the challenges are likely to occur. We want everything to go very right and failure is not an option as we are dealing with people’s money,” said Molefe.
