The Zimbabwe Independent published an article “The new pensions law: A regulator with no regulations”. The article corroborated pensioners’ averments as represented by Zimbabwe Pensions and Insurance Rights Trust (ZimPIRT) in 2021 and 2022, that the then Pension and Provident Funds Bill was corruptly and fraudulently passed behind pensioners nationally, with sinister intentions by the unrepresentative promoters of the Bill, Insurance and Pension Commission (IPEC).

In a clear case of bribery by IPEC, of Parliament clerical staff of the ParliamentaryPortfolio Committee on Finance & Economic Development, the Portfolio Committee clerical staff removed all the critical evidence in support of pensioners’ case from the April 2021 Parliamentary national consultation on the then Pensions and Provident Funds Bill. After removing the critical evidence from the report to be adopted by the Portfolio Committee, the Portfolio Committee clerical staff would refuse pensioners this report, thereby refusing the pensioners the opportunity to verify inclusion of their interests in the Bill.

The pensioners’ interests in the Bill not least included removal of provisions in the Bill entrenching wrong pension benefit calculations, inclusion of explicit accountability provisions on the part of insurance companies for playing the role of administrators, underwriters, solvency management, investment management and custodian of pension funds, and many other flaws of the Bill as aptly raised in the Zimbabwe Independent article “The new pensions law: A regulator with no regulations”.

The failure to include pensioners’ interests was despite the pensioners’ vehement protestations.

The Portfolio Committee, uninformed about pension operations, proceeded to lend themselves to cheating by their clerical staff, and to adopt the report manipulated by IPEC with their corrupt clerical staff as IPEC instruments of this manipulation, and to table the report to the National Assembly of Parliament of Zimbabwe.

In turn, and uninformed both the National Assembly and the Senate passed this fundamentally flawed and unusable Pensions and Provident Funds Bill, hence the comments in this Zimbabwe Independent article.

As a matter of corrupt habit, the same Portfolio Committee clerical staff have again recently raised the ire of Ziscosteel pensioners after they were similarly bribed by IPEC to contort the Zisco Pensioners Petition report to the Portfolio Committee, and to refuse them the report, with the same objectives of denying pensioners their benefits.

Against several court cases that pensioners are bringing against the insurance companies, pension funds, IPEC and the associated pension fund companies (business entities), individually and severally, the Judiciary is being made to interpret a fundamentally flawed Pension and Provident Funds Act. A Parliamentary Petition is necessary from pensioners to stop firstly the corruption within Parliamentary report-writing processes and secondly to stop any Acts of Parliament to date beget by the corrupt processes.

The Democratic process by which the Portfolio Committee writes its report for the consumption of the National Assembly must be overhauled to prevent Parliament clerical staff from corruptly contorting those reports meant to ensure the democratic process prevails

  • Tarusenga is the  General Manager of Zimbabwe Pensions & Insurance Rights trust. — martin@zimpirt.org.telephone; Mobile; +263 (0)772 889 716
  • Opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not represent those of the organisations that the author represent