This enables us to bring together a deep knowledge and understanding of the local environment with vast experience across the rest of Africa to provide world-class solutions to our clients in Mauritius.

Employee Benefits and Pension Services

Employee benefits, pension benefits and social security benefits touch the lives of a large proportion of people across the African continent. However, for various and often conflicting reasons, benefits are often viewed in isolation by individuals working at the same company or in the same government department.

At QED we believe that the consideration of all the moving parts relating to employee benefits and social security, and especially the interplay between those parts, is crucial to ensuring that the right benefits are provided at the right levels to the right people, via the right channels.

It is important for benefits and their purposes to be monitored to ensure that they remain relevant and appropriate to the people who are receiving them. In Mauritius this is especially true with the recent introduction of both the Portable Retirement Gratuity Fund and the Contribution Sociale Généralisée.

With the various pillars of savings and retirement benefit provision being covered by the government and private pension schemes in Mauritius, it is of vital importance to ensure that the full spectrum of benefits is carefully considered by employers, to ensure an optimal approach for their employees. We have advised a number of clients in Mauritius on deciding on an approach that is most suited to the specific needs of those clients. This includes an analysis of existing arrangements and whether these meet the requirements of the Private Pension Schemes Act and the Workers’ Rights Act, advice around setting up private pension schemes and assisting with finding the most appropriate structure and providers for such schemes.

Many companies will require IAS19 valuations as a result of the introduction of the PRGF, even those that have existing DC pension arrangements in place. We have performed several such valuations for clients in Mauritius, considering the potentially complex relationship between private pension schemes and the PRGF.

As in many other parts of the world, many DB pension schemes in Mauritius are considering converting to a DC arrangement. The transition from one benefit structure to another can be complex to navigate. With many of the countries in which we operate having seen large shifts from DB to DC since the late 1990’s, we have extensive experience in advising companies and schemes who are considering such a shift. Changing the nature of benefits provided such as a DB/DC conversion can be a complex exercise with very tangible ramifications for both employees and companies. It is crucial to partner with a firm that has experience in managing the full spectrum of such a project, from initial stages to final design and communication to members.

We also offer the full spectrum of other traditional actuarial and consulting services including:

• statutory actuarial valuations,
• asset-liability modelling exercises,
• and investment consulting and reporting.

• IAS19 valuations of DB pension funds and Retirement Benefit Obligations
• Statutory valuations of DB and DC funds
• Benefit consulting on private pensions, PRGF and CSG benefits
• Benefit costing and benchmarking
• DB/DC Conversion consulting and valuations
• DC Fund projections
• Key Performance Management of fund service providers
• HR data analysis and dashboarding

Summary of our Employee Benefits/Pension services

WIDER SERVICES

Employee benefits are inextricably linked in with a company’s overall HR strategy and often make up a significant portion of the company’s costs. It is therefore crucial for both finance and HR leaders to have a deep understanding of the employee benefit environment within their organisations.

With the volume of data available to organisations increasing exponentially, it is advantageous to be able to arrange and analyse this data using the latest available tools and methods. Having the ability to visualize and present insights into the data is crucial to driving effective and accurate decision making.

The first step is to generate appropriate dashboards to provide the data in a way that can be easily analysed.

Many businesses already have some business intelligence functionality. The modern dashboard, however, does far more than just tell the story of where your business has been. It is vital to know too where the business is going. And it is through parameterisation and predictive analytics that the modern dashboard allows you to do just that and more.

WHY USE QED?

QED is the largest independent actuarial consulting firm in Africa. For the past 25 years we have been providing actuarial services throughout the continent from our head office in Johannesburg, South Africa. In 2019 QED sold a majority interest to leading black-owned empowerment investment holding company African Rainbow Capital Financial Services Holdings. This move elevated QED to the status of the largest majority black-owned actuarial firm in South Africa and the rest of Africa.

EXTENSIVE EXPERIENCE

• Our highly qualified and experienced team has been involved in well over 1,500 IAS19 valuations for clients in 19 countries across Africa, the Middle East, Europe and the Bahamas.
• We have experience in valuing a wide variety of benefits, including statutory benefits, gratuity schemes, long service awards, leave benefits, pension funds and post-employment medical aid benefits.

EFFICIENT SERVICE

• We appreciate the tight timelines involved in yearend audits and we ensure that valuation reports are provided in the shortest possible time, our target turnaround times for standard valuations are between 1 and 2 weeks from receipt of the data to providing the valuation report.

COMPREHENSIVE CONSULTING AND INSIGHTS ON RESULTS

• Our goal is for clients to fully understand all aspects of our report so that they can take comfort in the results, appreciate any movements and ultimately be more empowered to analyse and interpret the figures that are presented in the financial statements.

VALUE FOR MONEY

• We continuously strive to improve the way we do things to maximise efficiency, while retaining quality of the highest standards. This leads to world-class solutions at a fair reasonable price.