Just a week ago, the minister of Social Welfare and Labour fired NSSA’s board chairman Robin Vela and one week on, the authority has appointed as one of its independent non executive director to an investee company, a figure closely related to the new Mnangagwa administration. These are just a few of so many undue deliberations forced on the pension fund by the administration of the day. The impact of these decisions is often felt indirectly through underperforming investments and operations volatility as due process is normally sacrificed for expediency. But the executive management is often without voice and in almost all circumstances the blame for underperforming investments and other misgivings is put on them.

A closer look at the affairs at the authority will however show a very different picture in terms of the drivers of underperforming assets and disruptive volatility within the operation. At the core of it is the outside influence by government through the ministry of social welfare and the ministry of finance. As per statute, the authority which was created as an act of parliament, is under the purview of the Ministry of Social Welfare which turn is responsible for the appointment of NSSA’s boar chairperson. The chairman on his part plays a critical role in the recruitment and retention of the executive management in turn lengthening the chain of dependency and loss of independency.

Other board members are pooled from interested bodies such as labour and industry, although much influence is retained by the government appointed Chairperson.  Often the appointed Chairs are allies of the ministers in charge of the parent ministry or other higher offices which the minister is subordinate to. For example during the GNU, MDC was allocated the labour ministry and likewise Tsvangirayi’s long time lawyer Chagonda was appointed as Chairman through to 2013. When ZANU PF regained full control and Mupfumira was allocated the Social Welfare Ministry, she took in Vela a seasoned investment banker but also an alleged relative. When Zhuwawo took over, there were high chances of Vela’s dismissal but the former did not last longer in that portfolio to execute such.

In comes Kagonye and the whip is finally stroked, Vela is fired and reports are that more shakeups are to be expected.  What is common with this pattern of events is that there is always no basis for sacking other than that the sheriff at the parent ministry is new and therefore wants allies who can drive her own agenda to take charge. In my view, Vela was competent in matters of investments and equally experienced. The team he recruited was likewise capable of delivering and of integrity.

The only blemish that came with him, in my opinion, was his unfettered powers that stretched to investee companies and his day to day involvement in operations at NSSA. He was a defacto Executive chairman, ruthless on investee companies and NSSA’s employee. They dreaded him at the authority for the radical changes he brought and his stern force and often employees lived in fear of losing jobs for close to one year. He successfully influenced the sacking of then CBZ board chair Mugamu and was behind NSSAs unflinching position at ZBFH regarding Vingirayi. At one time I criticized his management style and unguarded approach to his job.

But this was a man who drove NSSA’s investment performance to a new high, driving the overall contributions and payouts up by respectable margins. He realigned the operations to become more nimble and efficient, even taking the wage bill significantly lower. Despite the fact that he created a lot of enemies in the corporate world, he delivered his mandate at NSSA and the only factual basis for this argument is NSSA’s financial statements which are readily available in the public domain. Accusations of abuse of office have to date not been proven meaning his sacking may have been a political one other than a matter of incompetency which means it was not in NSSA’s best interest. But it did send a bold and clear message to the remaining executives that  they have to fall in line or else  face a similar fate regardless of competency levels.

In comes Mr Neville Mutsvangwa, who is son to the Presidential adviser Christopher Mutsvangwa. His appointment by Chitiga as a board member at Ariston serving NSSA’s interest shows the underlying force of Kagonye, now flexing her muscle. Mr Mutsvangwa has little to no experience in the running of a private company, more so a listed entity. His resume shows that he was once employed at Anjin as a marketing officer a few years ago, possibly marking the beginning of his professional career. That Anjin was a military controlled diamond mining company will tell you something. When Anjin was shutdown, he was later to be appointed as a non executive director at a parastatal board at Zimparks, a board that was recently dissolved for gross abuse of funds. That Zimparks like NSSA is aligned to government will also tell you something. This is as much as far as his career highlights go.

NSSAs exposure to Ariston may not be that huge given the Authority’s portfolio size, but the rationale for investing is always to get a good return, in fact the authority has a duty to stem value erosion through sustained losses. A key tenet in achieving this goal is the appointment of a capable management even at strategic level. Ariston has been an underperformer for a very long time and since dollarisation it has reported successive losses implying the company needs close management attention.  As one of the key investors in Ariston, NSSA should take it upon itself to appoint a seasoned industrialist with relevant expertise in the field of Agriculture management.  Someone who can contribute positively to the turnaround in Ariston’s fortunes and this cannot be someone seeking to instead, learn.

The company deserves better and the hardworking men and women at tea and macadamia plantations in Southdown Chipinge and the pome fruit plantations in  Nyanga, deserves better. They have endured for years and an able board can help change the path. I had the privilege of being invited to tour the company’s operations across the Eastern region just a month ago, and assuredly the company is on a mending path although it has been a long time coming. The passion, the precision in execution and the knowledge exhibited by all the employees manning the farms and factories is out of this world. Even the CEO Spear is just more than passionate and hardworking, he spends 3 working days every week in the fields in Chipinge and another in Nyanga, religiously. Theirs is an unparalled quest for redemption which is dearly supported by the majority shareholder. Alas the powers that be are not moved if not altogether ignorant to these facts, theirs is a political game and not a business one, which is sad.

But this writer is also a protégé of NSSA having worked at the authority as a trainee in the investments office under the previous administration led by Matiza. It was evident then, as it is now that the board crafts and authorize key investment decisions without submitting same for due diligence to experts officers and mid level investments practitioners that it employs. In actual fact, it is these experts in investments who should craft and draft proposals for board considerations not the other way round. At close look you will also realise that the board on its part is often under undue pressure from the ministry to push personal ministry political agendas which have a negative investment payoff. If “the new dispensation” and “open for business” are chants to be taken serious, government has to shun this Mugabe way of doing business.