Government settles retirement benefits of over 2000 retirees

Dar es Salaam. The government says it has settled pension benefit arrears that it owed retirees through pension funds including the defunct Public Service Pension Fund (PSPF).

This was revealed on Monday by SSRA’s Head of Public Relations and Promotions Sara Kibonde.

According to her, government through pension fund has committed to settle all outstanding arrears by January 2019.

“When the new law to merge pension funds were enacted in August 2018 there was a backlog of retirees whose pensions had not been settled,” she said.

She added: There were a total of 7924 retirees who were yet to be paid their pension in lump sum, these were instead receiving monthly pension as they waited for the lump sum payment.

On compliance with the new law by the pension funds, she said the situation was generally good because there is no pension funds that have delayed to remit their dues.

The new law directs social security funds to make lump sum payment to the pensioners within a period of 60 days; otherwise, face a penalty of five per cent of the total amount.

Ms Kibonde further explained that for those who have retired after the operationalization of the new law have been receiving their pensions immediately after retiring.

The record shows that 907 pensioners who had retired in the past two months have already been paid.