Tanzania: National Social Security Fund pays Sh351.14bn to pensioners in one year
Dar es Salaam. The National Social Security Fund (NSSF) revealed yesterday that it had paid Sh351.14 billion to its pensioners in the 2018/19 Financial Year.
NSSF public relations manager Lulu Mengele said this during a media seminar to introduce its new campaign dubbed ‘NSSF with Friends’.
She said that during the ending 2018/19 Financial Year, NSSF was able to collect a total of Sh828.09 billion from its various members across the country.
She said out of the amount, Sh351.14 billion was paid to pensioners, Sh7.96 billion for maternity benefit and Sh24.96 billion as health benefit.
She said that there were at least 55 million Tanzanians, but those involved in the Pension Funds were only 2.41 million.
"Pension Funds are important for our future, last month we paid at least Sh5.6 billion to our pensioners," she said.
For his part, NSSF Director General William Erio said NSSF would next week conduct a countrywide inspection of all its members to determine whether they had enrolled their workers to the Fund and remitted their contributions as per requirements.
He also highlighted their campaign "NSSF with Friends" to basically mean that it recognizes the strength of friendship and relations.
"Members are our true friends and that is why we have seen the importance of telling you this," he said and elaborated that it was part of the campaign.
"Because of the new friendship, we plan to start a countrywide inspection of the private sector to ensure employers have enrolled their employees to the Fund and remitted their contributions on a monthly basis," he stressed.
He further stressed that the aim of the inspection was to ensure employers implemented their obligations and workers’ rights were adhered to.
He noted that following the new Pension Funds law that took effect last year, all private institutions were obligated to remit contributions to NSSF on a monthly basis and enroll their workers.
Mr Erio explained that institutions that had government shares of less than 30 percent were also members of NSSF as well as people involved in the informal sector.
"We are in talks with mobile companies to enable companies remit their contributions through the Government electronic Payment Gateway (GePG) to reduce unnecessary hustles of having to visit the Funds offices.
He noted that they were also in talks with banks to issue loans to members of the Fund involved in informal business and that once the talks were finalized the banks would either issue loans in cash or as work equipment.
Mr Erio explained that NSSF was also in talks with the National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) to enroll its members in the health scheme that would ensure its members were well taken care of.
