‘Africa running out of time to sort looming pensions crisis’

Kampala, Uganda | An expert at the ongoing 4th Annual Conference of the African Pension Supervisors Association (APSA) in Kampala has said urgent steps need to be taken to reverse a trend in which the continent has only 10% pension coverage of its population.

Sundeep Raichura, Group Chief Executive Officer Zamara says that before African experts can talk of extending pension coverage, they must first admit that the continent has no working pension system, so that leaders focus on getting home grown solutions.

“In Africa, talking about extending coverage, is actually missing the point. We should be saying we do not have a pensions system, with the exception of 10% of our population. Then we can see the weight of the challenge, and come out with homegrown solutions, that we need to address the challenge of pension inclusion on our continent,” Raichura said, on day one of the APSA conference, at Serena Hotel Kampala, on Monday.

Raichura argued that Africa is a demographic ticking time bomb. “We have 600 million workers in Africa who do not have anything to fall back upon in their old age. In the next 20-25 years, there will be about 225 million people above the age of 60. We cannot wish this problem away. We need to think about it,” he said.

Pension sector supervisors and regulators from all over Africa are in Kampala to discuss ways of extending pension coverage to more citizens around the continent.