BPOPF�s insourcing suffers hurdles
Pauline Dikuelo | Friday March 3, 2017 15:43
According to the Fund’s chief executive officer, Boitumelo Molefe despite a six-month pilot phase they ran parallel with the former administrator, Alexander Forbes last year, they are still experiencing some difficulties that might take some time to eradicate.
“We are still experiencing some difficulties with the insourcing as there is a lot of backlog especially in data and members’ contributions which makes our job very difficult. We have realised that most of the members have not done their tax returns while some have withdrawn late,” she said.
From April last year, the BPOPF re-claimed the administration of pensions for its 153,000 members from Alexander Forbes saying the move was going to see the Fund saving up to 70% of the outsourcing costs.
She said the situation is going to take a while as they are also experiencing some internal process with the system emphasising that she is not regretting the decision. She said most of their staff are still also on a learning curve and are working closely with the government to try resolve the issue.
“When we pay out lump sum payments, our members need to have submitted their tax returns and other taxation compliance matters with BURS,” she said.
In addition Molefe said ever since taking over administering members’ benefits, trust services, pensioners’ payroll and management of records from Alexander Forbes, the BPOPF no longer has any services that are outsourced apart from investment management and annuities provision. Meanwhile, Molefe said the Fund’s project team has been working on the transitioning the Hilton Hotel project from Fleming Asset Management Botswana to Messidor as a result of their termination of the Fleming mandates.
“As you are all aware, the Fund has been working with Flemming on transitioning the development of the Hilton Hotel to our property manager Messidor. This is a critical and large project and it was critical that the transition is as smooth as possible,” she said.