DELAYED ENPF CEO RECRUITMENT EXERCISE TO BEGIN

MBABANE – After weeks of alleged back and forth among members of the Board and management, the recruitment exercise for the successor of Prince Lonkhokhela at Eswatini National Provident Fund (ENPF) will finally begin.

The prince reached the retirement age of 60 years and a decision was taken to extend his contract by a further two years. One of the reasons for the renewal was that he was expected to be still with the ENPF when his successor is hired so that he could understudy him or her and make a smooth and proper handover. However, the two-year contract elapses in January next year but the successor has not been hired nor has the recruitment exercise started.

back and forth

The Times SUNDAY has gathered that meetings have been held by both the Board of the parastatal and management to deliberate on the issue but there has been some back and forth regarding how the whole succession has to be handled. In particular, there have been allegations that there was a faction that believed that the successor should come from within the parastatal, while others want a candidate from outside. Certain names of both individuals from within the parastatal and those from outside are said to have been part of the engagements.
The names of the individuals are known to this publication but will not be revealed for ethical reasons. It has also been gathered that the Minister of Labour and Social Security, Phila Buthelezi, recently issued a strong directive that the Board should speed up the process of engaging the services of a consultant to conduct the recruitment exercise.

According to reliable sources, the minister is determined to leave office with the recruitment having been finalised and that he has registered his concern to the Board about the delay.
The minister is said to have advised that since time was running out, the next CEO should be hired at least six months before the prince leaves, something which now looks impossible as the call for interested candidates to apply for the position has not been officially announced yet. Instead, an invite for a consultant believed to be the one that will conduct the exercise was only issued two weeks ago. Responding to a questionnaire sent by this publication, ENPF Board Chairperson Muzi Gina confirmed that the Board has had engagements regarding the recruitment of the next CEO.

coming to an end

Gina confirmed that indeed, the contract of the prince will be coming to an end in January 2024. “The Board, when requesting for a renewal of the present contract of the CEO, had requested that a CEO be recruited in the last year of the contract, such that the current CEO can have a smooth handover to the incoming. When the contract was finally approved, it was without such conditions as were proposed by the Board. It was a plain approval of two years without any conditions. It is only just recently that we have been given directives by the Ministry on how to proceed with the process. Gina mentioned that the ongoing processes will be conducted in complete adherence with the fund’s internal requirement process, the existing contract of the incumbent CEO and laws governing employment in the country. A question was posed to Gina regarding whether the CEO to be hired will have enough time of being understudied by the outgoing prince since it was already August and January 2024 was only five months away.

In response he said, “The Board is very much aware of when the current CEO’s contract comes to an end, we have prepared accordingly as per the existing processes, corporate governance and legislations, our responsibility as a Board is to ensure that in the whole process, these are not contravened as we supervise the institution. The recruitment process has already commenced according to the Board’s approved CEO’s recruitment plan.” An independent expert on governance issues, who was asked to share his opinion on how the succession should be conducted, said there were both positives and negatives when it comes to the decision of a recruit from internally instead of outside. He said while it sounded proper to get someone internally, who knew the ins and outs of the parastatal, at times it was key to bring in new blood to an entity such as the ENPF. Also, the expert said the process of allowing the outgoing leader to understudy the new one sometimes did not yield any positive results.

contract extension

It should be noted that before the Board gave the prince the two-year contract extension, he is said to have indicated his interest to continue working for the Fund, and the Board sat down to deliberate on what he had submitted as motivation for the contract renewal. One of the issues said to have been brought to the fore was the need to consider the prince’s age since 60 years is government’s official retirement age. With the ENPF being a public enterprise, it was envisaged that the retirement age benchmark would be applied. This happened when, according to sources, there were certain structures that felt the experience of the prince was still needed at the Fund, especially since it was set to undergo a conversion into being a pension scheme. The prince is on record having said that the vision and mission of the Fund was to be ‘a world-class social security fund that positively contributed to the livelihoods of its members and to the economy of Eswatini.’  

He also said the purpose of the Fund was to be ‘a trusted social security partner that cares about Eswatini’s socio-economic development, through increasing compliance, investment growth, creating a culture of service excellence, retaining a team of motivated and committed staff’. Under his leadership, the Fund’s investments delivered excellent performance in the previous year, which, when coupled with its rigorous risk management over the long-term, put the Fund in a robust position.

stakeholders involved

This, it has been said, has come about through diverse investment strategies and decisions taken by all the stakeholders involved. Nearly two-thirds of ENPF investments remain in the domestic market, with the remaining one-third being invested with South African Asset Fund Managers and offshore. ENPF’s local investments are indeed well-diversified, with local private investments having the highest percentage (31 per cent), followed by investment properties (14 per cent) and local loans and advances (eight per cent). The Fund is invested in these sectors; financial, hospitality, retail, health, forestry, agricultural and energy. ENPF has a mix of commercial and residential properties in its portfolio, with the commercial properties reportedly accounting for 57 per cent, while the residential properties account for 43 per cent.

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