Social security funds urged to review benefits

By Lusekelo Philemon
18th May 2011

Local social security funds have been challenged to restructure their schemes with a view to improve retirement benefits for their members.

National Institute of Productivity (NIP) management analyst Anselm Namala threw the challenge when presenting a paper at Government Employees Provident Fund (GEPF)’s 3rd stakeholders’ conference held here recently.

He suggested that members’ benefits should reflect the actual living standards in the country. “Health, housing schemes and monthly pensions should be tailored to help low income earners,” said Namala.

He explained, “Again, one of the pension funds’ products is preparing members for life after retirement. This course has proved to be very useful to most retirees. My experience shows that retirees need something more than money.”

Namala further said retirees should be prepared psychologically before attaining the retiring age. “Without good plans, retirees cannot succeed after retirement life,” he stressed.

He also expressed concern over the current working environment for not letting employees to retire prematurely or early and benefit like those retiring after attaining the minimum or maximum age.

“That is why retirement is regarded by some employees as a killer ghost,” said Namala, adding that among key challenges facing social security systems at the moment is limited coverage due to the fact that employees in the informal sector don’t benefit from the schemes.

“The formal sector labourers contributes to only 5.4 per cent of the whole labour force in the country of over 16 million people. This means the remaining 15 million labour force are engaged in informal sector and therefore, not covered by the current social security schemes,” Namala said.
SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN