Amos Kambonde
The Government Institutions Pension Fund (GIPF) is a defined pension Fund that provides guaranteed pension benefits to its large membership base. As a government pension fund, membership to the fund is compulsory, as such GIPF has the mandate to make sure that its members are knowledgeable about their benefits and how the Fund operates.
The Omaheke Region is one of the most sparsely populated regions in the country.
As a result, members find it difficult to reach or access GIPF services timeously.
Against this background, the GIPF decided to embark on an initiative of taking member education to this important region of the country. The region is well-known for being an agricultural hub and passionately referred to as the ‘cattle country’. Several government departments and services are well spread throughout the region.
In order to ensure that the GIPF renders state-of-the-art services to its members, the Fund launched its first ever 4×4 mobile truck during the month of February this year.
The truck, passionately branded as “Pension on Wheels”, offers services such as printing of benefit and income statements. Our experienced client service consultants on duty are also able to attend to queries regarding claims, outstanding admissions, tracing of beneficiaries, and the provision of retirement advice, to mention a few.
The following constituencies of the Omaheke Region are earmarked to be visited:
Otjinene, Eiseb, Gam, Epukiro, Otjombinde and Aminuis. Our main target is reaching members who are in very remote areas of the region and who find it difficult to visit or access our services. Therefore, the GIPF team will be visiting schools, clinics, veterinary services, government ministries and police stations in the region.
We encourage all the GIPF members in the Region to be on the lookout for our mobile team, who will be offering interactive information sessions between the 11th to the 20th October 2021. Members seeking specific updates related to their benefits are always encouraged to bring their identity documents as well as their latest pay slips to the sessions.
GIPF has many other platforms of engagement and information sharing, such as targeted member education sessions at various government offices and member institutions. As a forward-thinking Fund, we have also embraced the use of new technologies and urge members to use our social media platforms and to log onto our member portal on the GIPF website (www.gipf.com.na).
