Africa-Press – Namibia. SABINE Halberstadt, the Deputy Chief Compliance Officer at the Government Institutions Pension Fund (GIPF), has expressed her views on compliance policies, and the significance of compliance functions.
She made these remarks in a statement issued by GIPF’s Public Relations Department, where she explained that compliance champions are employees in various departments of an organisation, who do not need to have a legal background.
Halberstadt said it is best to have a decentralised compliance function with compliance officers in various departments such as Information Security, Human Resources, Finance, Client Services, Operations, as well as Marketing and Stakeholders’ Engagement Department, as those people are specialists in their fields as opposed to having the customary way of centralised compliance functions.
“These people know the best practices in their field of expertise, such as the standards identified by international standards organisations and what the current trends and challenges are,” Halberstadt said.
According to Halberstadt, the Chief Compliance Officer, whether being part of a legal and compliance department or a stand-alone compliance function of an organisation, only guides other departments in identifying legislative requirements that they need to comply with to assist them in developing internal controls to ensure compliance with all requirements.
In her view, this is done either by developing policies, procedures and guidelines and by automating some of the processes. With the regulatory framework changing continuously, it is important for compliance officers to keep abreast with developments in legislation.
“For us, in the pension funds industry, for example, the Financial Institutions and Markets Act (FIMA), Act 2 of 2022, is a good example on how to prepare oneself for the implementation of the relevant regulations and standards that will accompany the new legislation. FIMA has been gazetted and it is easy to determine what needs to be done to implement it. The processes and procedures that need to be adjusted and the training of the staff members need are fairly easy to determine,” she added.
In order to achieve an effective decentralised compliance function, Halberstadt is of the view that employees in various departments need a good understanding of the day-to-day operations of their departments and best practices in their field of expertise, for example finance or investments.
She said, it is normally the duty of the Head of the Compliance Division to identify legal and other requirements an organisation needs to comply with. These requirements are discussed with the relevant departmental Compliance Champions and steps are agreed upon to ensure compliance.
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