19 December 2004	Sunday	06 Ziqa'ad 1425

KARACHI, Dec 18: A visiting World Bank mission was given a comprehensive briefing about Employees Old-Age Benefit Institution (EOBI) at the World Bank Country Office in Islamabad by EOBI's Investment Adviser Farooq A. Awan.

The mission, carrying out a debt market development assessment, comprises Senior Financial Sector Specialist Tadashi Endo, Financial Economist Dr Yibin MU, and Isfandyar Zaman Khan.

The mission was provided a detailed resume of the steps taken to reform the investment fund management in line with global best practices which includes complete automation, induction of professionals and technology enhancement of efficiency, improvement of governance and procedural improvements to ensure transparency and risk management.

Mr Awan highlighted the challenges that fund management still faces which includes, inability to retain high calibre professionals due to poor compensation structure, misalignment of fund management operations with existing managerial culture of EOBI basically due to lack of awareness and essential skills.

He stressed that segregation of funds management from executive management was essential to prevent recurrence of financial scams. "Such a segregation is in line with fiduciary obligations of fund managers and to insulate the fund from incursions of any kind."-APP