Parliament Pension Fund grows to Shs257bn

The Parliament Pension Scheme has realised an assets growth of 25.7 per cent from shs204.55 billion in 2018 to Shs257.21 billion improving its financial and investment capacity.

The Chief Operations Manager, Nightingale Mirembe said that this is attributed to an increase in member contributions, returns on investments in the equity market and the employment of a new risk management policy.

Mirembe made this revelation at the Eighth Annual General Meeting of the Parliament Pension Scheme on 21 February 2020.

“The use of a new risk management policy has helped us focus on investing in items that have less risk and greater return,” says Mirembe.

She added that risk management is crucial since the core value of the scheme is in investing funds for value and mitigating risks.

Mirembe added that this helped the fund realise improvement in other aspects of the scheme like prompt payment of pension benefits and.

“We have been able to pay out pension benefits by the 15th  day of the month and sometimes the 10th day; we have also reduced the unclaimed benefits from over Shs3 billion to Sshs500 million,” she said.

Speaker Rebecca Kadaga pledged to support the Scheme and to remind the President of his pledge towards offering funds to boost it financially.

Former MPs, Francis Epetait(R) and Charles Oduman at the meeting

The Auditor General, John Muwanga commended the Board of Trustees for adhering to the Parliamentary Pensions Act, 2007, Public Finance and Management Act 2015; the Uganda Retirement benefits regulatory Act, 2011 and generally accepted accounting practices.

“In my opinion, proper books of account have been kept by the scheme so far, as appears from my examination of those books,” he said.