RM: The theme was coined around the fact that there was going to be a lot of changes and a lot of upheavals. We learnt a lot during Covid-19 shutdowns in terms of new ways of working. We were relooking the industry. We said we had issues before, such as pension industry viability. We were digesting how we can move forward since Covid-19 brought its own set of challenges. That was the theme. It was informed by the shocks that we have gone through as a nation, such as loss of value. But the message we are putting across is that there are certain things that we cannot run away from. You either die whilst you are in employment, in which case you need insurance, or you survive and you retire. On retirement, we need to make sure that people have a plan. The message we are putting across is that yes, we have had problems but we need to rebuild.

MC: Tell us, Are there countries that have gone through a similar experience?

RM: If you go to Taiwan today you would not think that a decade ago that whole country was razed by a tsunami. But they have rebuilt. So, we are saying why can’t Zimbabwe do the same? We can’t keep crying over spilt milk. We need to say this is our country, let's rebuild. But we can’t rebuild without money from pension funds.

MC: How will you achieve your plans? RM: The first is confidence building. We had a lot of challenges, which means there were lessons we have learnt. For instance, during engagements with authorities we keep saying there are prescribed assets. But we have noticed that the nature of prescribed assets has changed. The majority of the current set of prescribed assets are real assets and they are equity, property and infrastructure development. These are things that provide some form of a hedge against inflation. At the same time, they contribute to economic growth. We have done hydro, solar and other projects. There are hotels that are being built, which have gained a prescribed asset status because they help build the tourism industry. The other issue that has become topical is the model of retirement funds.

MC: Tell us more about this.

RM: We have noticed that we have had defined benefit (DB) schemes and those didn’t work. With a DB fund, employers sink and members survive. With DBs you promise the member a certain percentage of the final salary for retirement. But what that means is that when shocks happen, it’s the employer who carries the risk. Where we have inflation or loss of value, your employer still needs to give you a salary in real terms. That becomes very expensive for funds. A majority of them moved to Defined Contribution.

MC: Please explain more about this.

RM: With this one it is what you contribute plus return. In that instance the member carries all the risk. That is the reason why we are where we are today. It is because whenever there is a shock it is the member who feels it. We want a relook of those models, taking lessons from what we have seen in order to come up with a model where external risks are shared between the contributing member, employer and perhaps active pensioners.

MC: What are your thoughts around sovereign paper?

RM: We have been engaging with the regulator

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• and the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development to say we have seen what happens when we have government paper which is not linked to inflation. In an inflationary environment it results in loss of

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