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Microfinance Association to establish Pension Fund



Story by: Fred Yaw Sarpong
Under the mandatory Tier 2 Pension Fund of the new Pensions Law, 2008 (Act 766), Ghana Association of Microfinance Companies (GAMC) decided to set up its own Pension Scheme to effectively and efficiently manage the 2nd Tier pension contributions of member companies on behalf of their employees.
The association opted to run a hybrid scheme which will enable the Association’s Pension/Provident Fund to be an autonomous scheme with its own Board of Trustees and outsource the regulatory requirements to either a Corporate Trustees or a Master Trust (Umbrella) Scheme.
The Executive Secretary of GAMC, Richard Amaning announced this at the association’s 2012 Annual General Meeting held in Accra last week Friday 16 August, 2013.
He stated that the underlying objective of the GAMC Pension Scheme is to provide a long term savings vehicle for retirement planning for employees of member companies.
‘Membership to the scheme is therefore limited only to employees of member companies of the Ghana Association of Microfinance Companies (GAMC),’ said Amaning.
He also stated that the association is in the process of setting up a deposit security fund. The deposit security fund is to provide a fund for safeguarding up to 20% of deposits mobilized by each member from the public.
It is also to provide a backup for mitigating panic withdrawals and run-ins by using funds contributed by the member; to obtain revenue by investing the fund in the best available securities, on the advice of the Fund Manager; and also to meet Bank of Ghana’s regulatory requirement on secondary reserve.
To allow for standardization of the operations of Tier 2 Microfinance to enhance effective monitoring and supervision by the association of a Standardized Operational Manual for member companies to standardize their operations for effective and efficient management.
In GAMC 2012 Annual Report that the standardized operational manual will focus on risk management manual, credit manual, HR  manual, MIS manual, Governance manual, internal control and audit manual, product development manual, procurement manual, branch operations manual, treasury manual, and IT security manual.
 The National Board Chairman of GAMC, Collins Amponsah-Mensah said the association was able to facilitate the submission of 198 applications on behalf of its members.
‘By the end of 2012, 77 member companies have received their final license, 134 had provisional incense and a couple of others having their application in process,’ he noted.


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