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Thursday, September 29, 2016

SSRA to check pension funds on 10pc spending rule

BERNARD LUGONGO
 The Director of Research, Action and Policy at SSRA, Mr Ansgar Mushi,
SOCIAL Security Regulatory Authority (SSRA) has embarked on evaluating pension funds to establish whether they have strategic plans to enable them comply with guideline requiring them not to spend more than 10 per cent of members’ contributions on their operational costs.

This comes after three months passed since the SSRA issued the two-year period for all social security funds to change their spending modalities in way that they do not exceed 10 per cent of the members’ contributions.
The new instruction was in line with ensuring that the funds keep enough money to pay the pensioners. “We are currently continuing with assessment of the security funds to see their responses towards the new guideline by putting in place mechanisms aimed at cutting down spending on operations,” Director of Legal Services at the SSRA, Mr Onorius Njole, said yesterday.
He said more details on how the pension funds have implemented the new guideline would be included in the annual accounts reports by the Controller and Auditor’s General (CAG).
“Currently, we cannot tell exact number of the pension funds have complied with the new guideline,” he said at the seminar for building capacity among journalists on role of the SSRA.
SSRA Public Relations and Promotion Director Sarah Msika called on the media to be ambassadors of spreading awareness on the importance of joining pension funds.
She said the number of people covered by social security funds still was low, noting that only 2.1 out of 25 million people in the workforce are registered. “As a country, we need to have more people join the pension funds to reduce poverty and improve our economy,” she stressed.
The Director of Research, Action and Policy at SSRA, Mr Ansgar Mushi, told participants that by June this year, the funds had already paid pensioners a total of 1.67 trillion/- and invested 9.03 trillion/-.

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