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Chronicle Reporter
THE National Social Security Authority (NSSA) lost 14,000 contributors through retrenchments and company closures last year and is owed $266 million by various employees as of December 2015, a Cabinet minister has revealed. In a report presented to Parliament on the state of affairs in the parastatal, Public Service, Labour and Social Services Minister, Prisca Mupfumira, said NSSA revenue collections took a dive last year due to economic challenges facing the country.
Thousands of workers lost their jobs following a wave of retrenchments sparked by the landmark court ruling in July 2015, which gave companies the leeway to fire employees on three months’ notice.
The minister said the authority’s board was sweating to collect the arrears as they impact negatively on future pensions for workers. “We would like to encourage employers and the workers to assist NSSA to receive contributions on time by taking great interest in the status of their pensions,” she said.
“NSSA pays members pensions and benefits from investments of contributions received and the amount of arrears by employers are now negatively affecting the fund.” In 2015, NSSA collected $215 million of which $172 million was for the pension scheme and $43 million for the workers compensation insurance funds.
“These contributions were seven percent below the 2014 collections, reflecting the difficult economic environment and the retrenchments that companies undertook in 2015 after the Zuva Judgment of the Supreme Court,” said the minister.
NSSA provides social security benefits for people in formal employment, which include retirement pension, survivor’s pension, invalidity benefits, children’s allowances and funeral grants. Under the workers’ compensation insurance scheme, NSSA covers workers against work place injuries, provides rehabilitation services for all injured workers, including walking aides and vocational training.
The minister’s report indicates the pensions authority has a total of 26,205 registered employers and from these 1,252 million workers are contributing to NSSA. She said the current contributions were based on a basic salary with the maximum salary level for contributions capped at $700.
Both the employer and worker contribute 3.5 percent of the basic salary. In 2015, a total of $107 million was paid to NSSA members for various benefits with retirement pension and survivors’ pensions amounting to $53.4 million and $46.4 million respectively, reads part of the report.
In line with its motto of “Care and Protect” and paying due regard to the economic hardships facing pensioners, Minister Mupfumira said a bonus of $6 million was also paid to members in December 2015.
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