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Bulawayo Bureau
A DELEGATION from Botswana is in the country to learn and share knowledge on social security modelling and would seek to replicate positive outcomes from Zimbabwe’s experience.
A high-level five-day programme began yesterday at a Bulawayo hotel where representatives from Zimbabwe and Botswana are engaged in talks and would seek to consolidate the outcomes of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in the field of labour and employment, which was signed in 2020.
As part of the programme, delegates would conduct a tour of the National Social Security Authority (NSSA) Workers’ Compensation Rehabilitation Centre near Mpilo Central Hospital and observation of selected company inspections.
Ms Veronica Moloko, who leads the Batswana delegation, said the engagement programme would help them cater to its unemployed citizens as NSSA has the best model in catering for workers.
“We are very happy as Botswana to be welcomed in Zimbabwe to discuss these important portfolios on employment services, social security, and also on occupational health and safety,” she said.
“As a country, we are lagging in all those three and we would like to know more about NSSA’s structure of the schemes.
“The way the schemes are structured is different as we only have one for employed officers. We do have schemes in other ministries but the Ministry of Labour is the one for both employed and unemployed people.”
Ms Moloko said knowledge sharing will help both countries improve their social security services as there were some models that Botswana was implementing, which are yet to be adopted in Zimbabwe.
“We are at an infant stage in trying to come up with a department of employment services, but since Zimbabwe already has a structure, we want to learn more from that and know more about the initiatives that Zimbabwe is using as we are still very far,” she said.
“I can just announce that we have a policy on employment services, which Zimbabwe is going to learn from. We would like to merge occupational health and social services like in Zimbabwe,” added Ms Moloko.
Acting NSSA general manager, Dr Charles Shava, said the engagement is also meant to equip NSSA on innovative ways to improve services as Botswana had impressive strategies being implemented in the field of social security.
“We are a social security organisation, and we provide security to supplement primary pensions. We are proud that we are paying the highest pensions despite collecting the least contributions from workers,” he said.
“We have been able to do this because of the ability to harness contributions efficiently. We are growing our investment income, which we have managed to do by almost 100 percent over the past term.
“We have inflation eroding our contributions, but we continue pushing so that we give our pensioners the best of service despite our challenges.”
Dr Shava said NSSA was always keen to find ways to learn new things and improve hence this week’s engagement with Botswana.
“We believe Botswana has an impressive social service structure hence there is a lot to learn from them,” he said.
NSSA has raised the country’s flag high after winning three awards at a continental ceremony organised by the International Social Security Association (ISSA) in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire in May.
The three certificates of merit are in recognition of various initiatives it has taken to enhance service delivery through innovative interventions
The 2023 Good Practice Awards attracted 138 entries from 48 member organisations in 30 African countries.
The statutory pension fund won a Certificate of Merit, with special mention for Enhanced Compliance Enforcement through embracing information and communication technology (ICT) and collaboration with other statutory bodies/agencies.
The third award was a certificate of merit in recognition of implementation of the self-adjusting framework that is reviewed quarterly, and indexed against the cost of living.
Bongani Ndlovu
Online Reporter