adminattempted to attach property due to non-payment of contributions to the national pension fund.
Non-payment is a serious matter, not only because it contravenes the law but also because it disadvantages employees, who may not be eligible for benefits because of their employer’s failure to remit contributions to NSSA.
In many cases, the employer may have deducted the pension contributions from the employees’ salaries but failed to hand them over to NSSA.
Employees may be well advised, therefore, to find out whether or not they are registered with NSSA and whether or not contributions are in fact being remitted for them to the social security authority.
Every employee should be able to obtain from NSSA a registration number. When starting a new job the employee should be given by the new employer a NSSA form to complete that is used to register him or her with NSSA. If the employee already has a NSSA registration number, the number should be entered in the appropriate boxes on the form.
If the employee is registering for the first time it might be advisable, in the absence of any feedback from NSSA or the employer within a reasonable period of time, to contact the social security authority and inquire whether one is registered and what the registration number is.
It would be unfortunate to be having deductions for contributions to the national pension fund deducted from one’s salary every month without any benefit either because one was not registered as an employee with the pension fund or the contributions deducted from one’s salary were not being paid to NSSA.
The remittance advice the employer provides NSSA with states how many employees the contributions are for but does not stipulate the names of the individual employees. It is presumed that the contributions are for those employees registered with NSSA as working for that employer.
For many people, retirement may be a long way off but when the day comes the number of contributions that have been made will affect the size of the pension. It is important, therefore, that contributions are remitted every month.
It is important too that employers submit the NSSA annual return (P16 form) which summarises the total contributions made by the company for the year and the actual contributions by each employee.
When NSSA pursues outstanding contribution payments from a company that is going through a difficult time, it is not purely to enforce the law or to increase its revenue or through lack of sympathy for the company. This is done to protect that company’s employees and ensure their social security is not undermined by their employer’s failure to remit the required contributions.
It can happen that an employee has been having contributions deducted regularly from his wages but these contributions, together with matching contributions from the employer, have not been remitted by the employer to NSSA.
It may even be that the employee has never been registered with NSSA.
When the employee dies and his family approaches NSSA for a funeral grant and other benefits, it is unable to obtain them because NSSA has no record of the employee or of contributions having been made for him by his employer.
Every employer in the formal sector, other than a domestic worker’s employer, has an obligation to register itself and its employees and to remit to NSSA each month six percent of each employee’s salary, half of which is recoverable from the employee’s salary. The employer is also obliged to pay a Workers’ Compensation Fund premium for each employee.
Even commercial farmers are expected to register and remit contributions and premiums to the two schemes. If they do not, then they are liable, when NSSA catches up with them, to pay not only the contributions but penalties and surcharges. They could also be prosecuted.
Farm workers tend to be one of the most vulnerable groups when it comes to their welfare and social protection.
It is important, therefore, that commercial farmers ensure they are protected by the national social security schemes that are in place by registering themselves and their employees and remitting the required contributions and premiums to the social security authority.
Domestic workers and the informal sector are not at present included in these schemes, however.
l The Talking Social Security Column is published each week by the National Social Security Authority as a public service. Readers who have any questions they would like dealt with in this column are welcome to make known their wish by sending an e-mail with their questions to [email protected]
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