adminNSSA general manager Mr James Matiza told the parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare that his organisation had the money to increase pension benefits.
Legislators had bemoaned the paltry monthly benefits pensioners were receiving.
“The NSSA Act requires that the board meet to review monthly benefits at the end of each year and last year we met with workers representatives where the issue of the low monthly (benefits) was also raised and we also met employer representatives,” said Mr Matiza.
“It was then agreed that we raise the allowance from $40 to $60 and that was recommended to the minister while invalidity allowances and those for widows and children were raised $30 up from $20.
“However, private pension players appealed to Government that if NSSA were to raise the benefits it would affect their benefits and push them out of business.”
Mr Matiza said the International Labour Organisation commissioned a study to establish the effect of NSSA benefits payouts on private pension schemes.
“The ILO said they would be ready with the report this month and that is what we are waiting for,” he said.
NSSA is paying $40 in retirement pension and $20 for invalidity, survivors and children allowances.
However, Chiwundura representative Cde Kizito Chivamba said it was disheartening that NSSA had bailed Renaissance Merchant Bank with large sums of money when they were failing to support ordinary workers who contribute their hard earned money.
“It’s sad that you are directing money to organisations that mismanaged money on their own yet people who contribute are getting peanuts,” he said.
Cde Chivamba requested that the authority furnishes them with a report on the RMB bail out.
RMB was placed under curatorship by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe following the unearthing of financial irregularities at the bank.
It was, however, removed from curatorship following the intervention of NSSA, which invested $24 million into the troubled bank.
The committee’s chairperson Cde Margaret Zinyemba (Mazowe South) said ordinary people in rural areas were failing to make ends meet while the authority was making investments that do not directly benefit them.
Mr Matiza, however, said they only arrive at monthly payouts at the recommendation of actuaries.
Last year NSSA paid out $44,8 million to 129 753 beneficiaries.
Online Reporter