Hope for pensioners and as inquiry report is tabled before Cabinet
Insurance24
HARARE, Ministry of Finance and Economic Development will soon table before Cabinet a report that was prepared in a bid to compensate pensioners whose pensions were eroded during the conversion from Zim dollar to US dollars.
In 2015 government set up a commission of inquiry to probe the conversion process used to convert pensions and insurance benefits following dollarisation of the economy in 2009. This followed concerns by pensioners that their pensions and insurance benefits were undervalued during the switch over from the Zimbabwean dollar to the US dollar.
Policyholders and pensioners who are feared to have lost the value of their investment in 2009 could be compensated if proposals in the new legislation are implemented.
Deputy Minister of Finance Terrence Mukupe responding to a question during a Parliament session said a document to that effect was now in place and will be table before the Cabinet first before it is made public.
“We have presented the report to President Emmerson Mnangagwa.We shall be presenting it before the cabinet when it sits on the 6th of February. Therefore we can’t make it public before then but you have to know that it is now in place. I can’t give a time frame for implementation before the cabinet sits. ” he said.
Vice President Constantine Chiwenga who was also in attendance added that the issue pensioners were receiving the attention it deserves.
Statutory Instrument 1 of 2016 proposes, among other legal provisions, establishment of the basis for compensation where pension fund members, insurance policyholders or their intended beneficiaries
are found to have been materially prejudiced.
Insurance policyholders and pension fund members are feared to have lost significant value when Zimbabwe transitioned to a basket of currencies dominated by the greenback.
But now, there will be a process first to identify the appropriate criteria for assessing whether any pension fund members or insurance policyholders have been prejudiced and based on this, establishment of the extent of the value lost in the conversion.
The law provides for investigation of the financial soundness of Zimbabwe’s insurance and pension industry before and after the conversion the Zimbabwe dollar era to US dollar or multi-currency
system.
