Windhoek
The Government Institutions Pension Fund (GIPF) walked away with four Institute of Retirement Funds Africa (IRFA) Best Practices Industry awards at the annual ceremony held earlier this month.
IRFA is a body that represents the interests of the retirement industry in Africa.
Speaking at the GIPF awards ceremony yesterday, the GIPF chief executive officer David Nuyoma said areas that received highest scoring include stakeholder’s communication, pensioner’s well-being, research and the biometric pensioner’s identification system.
“This achievement translates into the GIPF being rated as the best managed fund in Africa, a status we wish to celebrate in our dream to be a leading pension fund,” he added.
Nuyoma said the company will continue to benchmark itself against the world’s best practices and standards to achieve excellence in all aspects of its operations.
“Just over two years ago, GIPF re-evaluated itself in terms of the overall organisational performance including stakeholders’ relations and this led to an institutional rebranding in order to provide an impetus to our vision to be a leading pension fund and a model corporate citizen,” he said.
He said this achievement does not only belong to the GIPF alone, but also the “efficient institutional supervisory framework and the consistent support received from all key stakeholders”.
IRFA presents six prestigious best industry practices awards, namely, Stakeholder Communications Strategy, Stakeholder Communication Project, Financial Reporting to Stakeholders, Fund Governance, Trustee Development and Investment.
Also included is the Gold Standard certificates which are awarded to entrants in each fund category who score above 75 per cent in the judging process.
The awards were introduced to promote professionalism in management and administration of pension funds.
The GIPF is a signatory to the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (UNPRI), an international network of institutional investors committed to the development of a more sustainable global financial system. “In this regard, we wish to promote issues of environment, social and corporate governance within our investment policy framework,” said Nuyoma.