Majority of retirement benefit schemes do not have a conflict resolution policy to handle disputes related to managing pension funds.
This was revealed yesterday during a virtual forum that was sponsored by Enwealth Kenya, Strathmore University Business School and Institute of Human Resource Management (IHRM).
“It was found that only 26 per cent of schemes have a conflict resolution policy while 37 per cent haven’t and the same percentage said they don’t know if they have,” said Naomi Mwangi, a lecturer at Strathmore Business School, which conducted the survey.
Lack of the policy, she said, has resulted into many conflicts relating to processing of benefits, trustee expenses, trustee election or appointment and scheme investment, among others.
Half of the survey respondents encountered more than one conflict in the past one year while, 65 per cent spent more than one hour dealing with pension-related conflicts, with majority of the conflicts occurring at the point of accessing benefits either at retirement or on termination of employment by the employer, at 46 per cent.
On who has the ultimate responsibility of managing the conflicts in pension funds, trustees play the greatest role, followed by the Retirements Benefits Authority and human resource managers.
“To improve the conflicts management, the survey recommends among others, increased effective training of the members at 27.5 per cent, followed by improved governance of pension schemes and communication between different partners within the industry both at 16.7 per cent,” said Ms Mwangi.
Enwealth Kenya General Manager George Oyugi said schemes should embrace early prevention and alternative dispute resolution (ADR) in solving the conflicts.
“Courts should be the last resort but schemes should embrace ADR because it’s not time consuming and saves relationships,” he said.
Naomi Jelimo, head of human resource and membership services at IHRM said some employers do not adhere to RBA rules and regulations.
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