PSSSF registers 7,500 members

Dar es Salaam. A total of 7,575 new members have been registered with the Public Service Social Security Fund (PSSSF), almost nine months after the fund started its operations after merging four security funds.

The merged funds were PPF Pension Fund, Public Service Pension Fund (PSPF), Local Authority Pension Fund (LAPF) and Government Employee Provident Fund (GEPF).

This was revealed on April 18 by the fund’s director general, Mr Hosea Kashimba, when the Prime Minister, Mr Kassim Majaliwa, paid a visit to the former’s office in Dodoma.

Mr Kashimba informed the Premier that the fund previously had a total of 962,871 of which 279,564 came from the private sector.

He added that between August 2018 and March 2019, the fund collected a total of Sh928.31 billion, an equivalent of 88.62 per cent collection compared to the set goal of collecting Sh1.05 trillion.

“Also, the fund has been able to pay a total of Sh1.65 trillion as benefits to its members in the period that ended on March 31, 2019,” Mr Kashimba was quoted as saying in a statement released to the media. “The fund has at the moment a total of 839 workers, 740 of them are men and 369 women.”

Mr Majaliwa urged the fund to devise creative ways that will help increase its collections.

He made the call after realizing that the fund’s collection of contributions was unsatisfactory.

“I would like to insist that the responsibility to collect contributions is the serious one,” said Mr Majaliwa. “You have to understand what the average monthly amount is and if it goes down you need to know to what extent it does so and find ways to curb that.”

Mr Majaliwa said that he understood the huge task that the fund has of registering new members but urged Mr Kashimba and his team to reach out to past members from the dissolved funds and make sure that they too are registered in the new fund.

He also asked the fund’s management to satisfy itself over the verification of the properties bequeathed to it by the dissolved funds and establish their current status.

“Management alone cannot make a follow-up of all the properties, so divide that task among the Board’s members so that they can go and assess the properties and let me get the report,” demanded the premier.