Social security schemes have duty to bail us out

By Editor
31st December 2010

It doesn’t take long searching on the internet for one to come across a January 2003 document attributed to the Ministry of Labour, Youth Development and Sports and reading: ‘The United Republic of Tanzania - The National Social Security Policy’.

Although it is not clear to what extent or depth the document has been updated since it was first drawn up, what it says about the objectives of social security services generally tallies with what social security institutions in existence in the country give as their vision or mission.

Some of the explanation is obvious, such as that social security covers a wide variety of public and private measures meant to provide benefits when individual members are unable to avoid poverty after their income-earning power ceases or is otherwise interrupted.

The document elaborates on the key elements of the social security system in Tanzania, among them non-contributory schemes catering for people with disabilities, elderly people and unsupported parents and children unable to fend for themselves.

There are also mandatory schemes, under which members remit regular contributions through their employers to pension or provident funds, with employers also acting similarly.

However, in a candid admission, the policy says inadequate financing and disjointed institutional arrangements have denied the majority of Tanzanians the benefits offered by social security schemes.

By the time the policy was unveiled, when the country had a population of roundabout 33.5 million, it was reported that 5.4 per cent of the labour force – or 2.7 per cent of the population – was covered by the mandatory formal social security system.

Many saw this as spelling grave danger in that informal, that is, family and community support did not guarantee sustainable social security within different social groups.

The country now boasts of a National Social Security Fund, a Parastatal Pension Fund, a Public Service Pension Fund, a Local Authorities Provident Fund, and a National Health Insurance Fund.

Officially, NSSF covers employees of the private sector and non-pensionable parastatal and government employees, PSPF and NHIF cater for central government employees under pensionable terms, PPF concerns itself with employees of both private and parastatal organisations, and LAPF takes care of local government employees.

In sum, even all these schemes combined do not cover all people to be found in the formal employment sector, one explanation being structural, operational and policy weaknesses inherent in the country’s social security system.

This is precisely why the Social Security Regulatory Authority has formed a task force to make a thorough review of the legal and control frameworks governing the operations of social security schemes at play in the country, whose role is widely acknowledged as crucial and sensitive.

Social security cover is basic human right to be enjoyed by every member of society, the only difference being the degree of its accessibility. If anything, the elderly, people with disabilities and the unemployed need it most.

These are hard economic times, and it’s high time our social security schemes did more to bail the nation out the mess it is in. The naming of the task force is to be applauded, as the fruits of its work are eagerly awaited.
SOURCE: THE GUARDIAN