Director of Planning and Investments (Public Service Pensions Fund)

H.E Jakaya Kikwete has had two wonderful terms that has put Tanzania on the right Track to attain its Vision 2025 – to make Tanzania a Middle-Income Country. What in your opinions are the President’s main achievements?

H.E President Jakaya Kikwete has accomplished a lot during his ten years of leadership. To start with, I would like to talk about the infrastructures that have tremendously been improved. The road network has been enhanced and tarmac roads now connect most of the regions of Tanzania. For example, it used to be a problem for farmers to transport their harvest from local areas to urban centers where they could fetch a better price and demand. Nowadays, these same farmers are able to harvest and transport their products without any problem. He is also been at the heart of solving power generation by finding alternative solutions without having to rely on Hydropower. The gas pipeline – Mtwara to Dar es Salaam – will allow the country to reduce cost of productions and maintain our competitive advantage on several markets. We will avoid situation of black outs and generating power won’t be an issue for Tanzania. In the education, he has been involved and has ensured secondary education to all the Tanzanians. He has also managed to build universities – University of Dodoma – that offers an outstanding education. These are few examples that showcase President Kikwete accomplishments and his legacy will long live after he leaves.

Tanzania has a wide spectrum of possibilities on its different industries and has become an attractive investment destination thanks to fast growing economy and positive key indicators - Why would you say Tanzania is an attractive destination for investors?

The President has worked quite a lot in trying to attract more and more FDIs within the country. Nowadays, we have good investment attraction policies that have shown to be effective according to the rise of international interest for Tanzania. Hand in hand, the President and the TIC have deployed to make Tanzania an attractive destination for investment. In addition, Tanzania is a peaceful country if you had to compare it with other African countries. Investors have the insurance that their investment is safe and will fortunately be for a long term. Moreover, Tanzania is strategically located with natural hobours along the Indian Ocean while bordering about six landlocked countries. Tanzania offers plenty of opportunities in different sectors and I would like to invite investors to come. 

Tanzania Pension industry is really wide and many competitors are in the market – considering the numbers of institutions (Public service Pensions Fund, Government Employees Provident Fund, National Social Security Fund, PPF Pension Fund and LAPF Pensions Fund) offer similar services to consumers. Could you give us some overview of the sector?

The Pension Industry has changed overtime since 2010. We used to have five institutions – PSPF, NSSF, PPF & others – and these were all public funds with membership defined by specific sector that they were saving.  As an example, if you were from the private sector you belonged to NSSF – if you were coming from a parastatal you will be at PPF – if you were a government employee it would be PSPF. In 2008, we introduced SRRA and there was membership liberalization. New Members were allowed to choose any of the 5 funds and this consequently has increased competition in the market. Fierce competition is a good thing and forces us to innovate on a regular basis to keep our customer base as well as attracting new members. However, on the other hand  it increases administration costs of managing these funds.

PSPF is evolving in a competitive market – How would describe yourself compare to other institutions?

The main difference with the rest – we offer a really good service to our members. Service to members is at the heart of PSPF strategy. We aim at offering a good service to individuals that once their retirement announced they feel secure about receiving his money on time. In addition, PSPF has been very innovative and has come up with number of products which gives it a competitive edge in the market while creating long-term relationship with its member. On the other side, we have developed an investment policy managed by our board of trustees that ensures that we give the best to our members and contribute to socio-economic development of our country.

PSPF surely have an investment strategy – We would like to know in which sectors is PSPF currently investing?

Guided by its investment policy and guidelines from the regulators, PSPF has diverse investment portfolio comprising of Government papers, Equities, loans both corporate and direct to the government and real estate.  As an institution we are trying to create economic activity within our own country by investing within the country. Our future plan is to broaden our portfolio by investing in infrastructure project and agricultural sector. The objective is build projects that will have an impact on job creations and help develop technologies to facilitate work in those areas. Recently, there is an American company that is willing to come to Tanzania to implement a project in Tanga.

In 2012, the PSPF expanded coverage beyond government employees to the rest of the formal and informal sectors. How has this been received by the public so far?

We have started a new scheme in the informal sector - it is called PSPF supplementary scheme (PSS). This scheme aims at extending the social security services to the informal sectors with a vision of ensuring that every Tanzanian is covered by social security. Since its establishment in 2013 the scheme has managed to register more than 30,000 people.  We came up with innovative strategies and awareness campaign, so that we could educate the market. We provide educational programs - for instance we normally visit small entrepreneurs, cooperative society and business groups and educate them on the importance of social security before we register them to the scheme.

Would you describe PSPF as being an innovative institution?

We have teams on the field that constantly research and try to innovate by understanding the market need. They come up with products and services that adapt to different individuals. We have basically trying to implement a mindset that enhances innovative products. Supplementary scheme is a good example of innovative services as well as joining effort with commercial banks to provide members with loans. This second service give people access to a number of loan products with affordable rates. We work hand in hand with banks to secure a deposit at a preferred rate so they can loan to people at affordable rate. For example, we have got young people who are employed, especially primary school teachers who are posted in very remote areas. These individual can access shorten loans from the bank and they can repay it within 24 months. We also, provide education loan whereby, for members who would wish to pursue further education , but  cannot afford can access these loans from the bank that we have entered into agreement and pay for the fee. Those are kind of products that we have come up with to improve life of the people and also to attract more members.

From a more personal perspective – What are you most prod of?

I am proud of everything I had the chance to accomplish. PSPF has come a long way since its establishment and in 2008 we have started to invest in real estate. As you must have noticed, the Golden Jubilee Towers is one of its kinds in Dar es Salaam City and was one of our main achievements. We also have constructed along Sokoine drive in Dar es Salaam a Twin Towers that are almost finished and will shortly be habitable. One of the two towers will be a hotel while the other will be office for a specific target of people. The PSPF Twin Towers are the fourth highest building in Africa. I have to admit that I am really proud of being at the start of this project. I am really proud to be a Tanzanian and to be part of such an ambitious institution