Not too late to plan for retirement

So said Republic Bank’s Business Development Officer Kameel Mungru who was yesterday one of several financial advisers and health and wellness coaches advising employees and visitors to the Ministry of the Attorney General and Legal Affairs Open Day targeting pre-retirees.

During the first three hours of the open day, Mungru said he found that a lot of people were interested in taking care of their retirement.

However, he said, “Some had no idea of retirement planning with nothing in place.

Some are pretty much taken care of because they are permanent employees but maybe not enough to bridge the shortfall in their pensions and salaries.” Mungru said a lot of salaried-income employees did not think about what they would do on retirement and contract workers might not have a pension in place.

“Whether you have something in place with your employers or not, you need to take care of your retirement,” Mungru said. “That time for when your salary is not there, that shortfall whether it be a ten per cent or a 15 per cent short fall or be it that you have nothing coming in, you need to have something put aside.” In a word of advice to young people, he said, “It is never too young to start planning for retirement because, as with most things in life, the earlier you start, the easier and cheaper it is to do.” For older people, who did not have anything in place, he said, “You may have to take a little bit more risks now, but it can still be done. You can still start late and still finish with a pension or retirement plan.” Mungru said there were different ways in which someone could go into retirement, whether it was re-engineering oneself to do a different type of job or even open a business.

Most people, he said, “just tend to think that because they have an annuity plan it is a good retirement plan, but there are other ways in which you can take care of your retirement.” Shanta Singh, senior corporate communications officer in the Ministry of the Attorney General and Legal Affairs said the objective of the two-day open day, which ends today, was to bring awareness and encouragement to pre-retirees, especially in the current economic downturn as to what they could invest in and what they should not.

A total of 20 institutions from the financial banking sector, credit unions societies, health and fitness centres, and travel agencies had their products on show.