Emotions ran high at the Ministry of Finance and Public Enterprises consultation on the Financial Institutions and Market Act (FIMA) regulation on the preservation retirement benefit fund at Eenhana.

Participants also highlighted that a lack of financial literacy in Namibia is a burden that needs action to educate the nation on financial matters.

One of the Technical Advisory Committee members conducting consultations, Martino Olivier, felt that the participants did not give the committee time to respond to their concerns.

The working class of Keetmanshoop, Aroab, Tses, and Berseba have rejected a draft regulation to preserve retirement benefits. 

It is proposed in the new Financial Institutions and Markets Act (FIMA), governing pension funds, that at least 75% of a pension must be retained as retirement savings until the retirement age of sixty.

This means they will only be allowed to withdraw up to 20% of these savings before retirement.

Industry stakeholders in Namibia have called for the recall of the Financial Institutions and Markets Act (FIMA), citing its Canadian origins as the reason for its inability to meet the needs of the local environment. 

The proposed law, which requires compulsory 75% preservation of retirement benefits for people who withdraw from their retirement funds before the prescribed early retirement age of 55 years was supposed to take effect on 1st October last year, however, it was put on ice following public outcry.

The Namibia Financial Institutions Supervisory Authority (Namfisa) has received public and industry input on supplementary legislation to the Financial Institutions and Markets Act (FIMA) and feedback on this will be communicated during the last quarter of this year.

Speaking at the Legislative and Supervisory Reform conference in Swakopmund, Namfisa's CEO, Kenneth Matomola, says that to ensure Namibia's financial system is stable and sound, transformation is necessary from outdated legislative frameworks, which are a challenge to regulation and supervisory.