Pension industry contributions to the economy continued to grow strongly, reflecting improved compliance and expanded scheme coverage. Total contributions reached K352.4 billion as of December 2025, largely driven by improved remittance compliance. However, creating awareness would help the sector thrive further. Journalist WILLIAM KUMWEMBE engages Old Mutual Pension Services Company Managing Director Tawonga Manda on strides made towards the mark.
For a start, there is a diverse understanding of pension out there. What central message would you convey to Malawians about pension?
The central message that I would convey to the audience about pensions is the fact that everyone needs to have a pension of some kind. And every person carries two risks. You discover that this conversation is very important and everyone needs to be so intentional about it and start planning about it.
What is the situation now?
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Unfortunately, despite all these facts pointing to the fact that people need to plan for their retirement, my assessment is that as much as many people have embraced preparing for their pension, for most Malawians, planning for their pension is a burden. Pension is mandatory. And to every person who is employed, there is a cost to be on pension. But there are many instances where people would look for any opportunity that would be there to cash out their pension money. And this is what it means. It means that people don’t really appreciate why they need to save for their retirement and they would want to get that money as soon as possible. Leaving out the fact that that money was being saved for a specific cause that is at a time when they are retiring. So if you look at it from that perspective, not many people have embraced pension. There is a need for us to continue sensitizing people on the need for people to plan properly for their retirement so that many people can embrace it.
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Some say today is more important than tomorrow. That they have taken as a justification of maybe not focusing on saving and investing for the future, precisely on pension. What is your message?
Today, most of the people have g o t t h e opportunity to earn money. And from that perspective, they can be able to earn something that can be able to sustain them now. Unless that perspective is short-term in nature to say that they feel like they are not going to live long, which contradicts the earlier conversation we said that the reality is that the life expectancy now is longer. Therefore, I wouldn’t say that today is more important than tomorrow. Both are important. Today is important. Tomorrow is also important. As long as life is there, today or tomorrow, both days are important because we still need money to sustain us either today or tomorrow. So, the view that today is more important, I think is a misconceived way of thinking.
There is a conference that you hold each year and you are holding one in August as part of the strides to ensure there are continued conversations around pension. Tell me more about it?
Starting from last year, we felt that we have got a bigger responsibility. Apart from o u r clients, we can have a conference where we can discuss pension matters because these are matters that cut across, not only to our customers, but to the society that we are living in. So we opened a conference not only to our customers, but even to other pension players. The idea is to create a platform where people can meaningfully discuss issues about pension so that they understand what this is all about. And also they are equipped to go out and tell others about the pension. Sometimes we skate around issues to say, let us not discuss this issue, it’s a very sensitive issue. But this year, we want to discuss this issue. We are focusing on; is retirement really important for Malawians? And the theme is Reimagining Retirement. It is tackling all the subtle issues that people talk about; including the relevance of pension from various angles.
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What should people expect from the indaba?
People should expect many good things. For people who are going to participate in this conference, they are going to be part of the conversation, a very candid conversation about retirement planning. And more importantly, coming out of the indaba, they should be able to go out and tell their employees, their members on pension, why it is important to have a pension. But over and above that, they will also be able to learn from other individuals, not only in Malawi, but also from outside, who are also walking the retirement journey and some of the challenges that they are facing and how they overcome them. Also, we will get insights from other people who have walked the journey.
