PLANS are afoot to establish an insurance fund to cater for monthly stipends to employees losing jobs before the retirement age, President John Magufuli announced yesterday.
Dr Magufuli revealed further that the
government envisages merging several social security schemes into two
major entities to trim operational costs.
Addressing a mammoth crowd that turned
up for the International Labour Day here, President Magufuli said the
new insurance fund will replace the hitherto withdrawal benefits that
pension funds pay.
“A Bill for the enactment of the fund
will be tabled soon in the National Assembly and once passed, I will
immediately assent it into legislation,” Dr Magufuli declared, hinting
that the government was in the process to reduce the number of pension
funds into two schemes. “A cabinet paper on the matter has been
finalised and we are in good progress.
Through the merging, we expect to reduce
the operational costs, which the funds incurred. Under the merger, we
will also address the problem of discrepancies in the calculation of
terminal benefits for pensioners by different schemes,” he explained.
Dr Magufuli assured workers countrywide
that the government will continue improving their welfare and settling
all outstanding arrears. “When I assumed power (in November 2015), the
government owed social security funds a whopping 1.5tri/- in employees’
contributions but as of now, we have paid 1.23tri/-,” he stated, vowing
to settle the remaining balance, soon.
The Head of State censured employers,
including the government, whom he accused of delaying workers’
contributions to the pension funds, and ultimately, inconveniencing the
payment of terminal benefits to the retirees.
Pledging improved welfare to workers, Dr
Magufuli said the government had suspended new recruitments and
promotions, pending the cleansing of the government payroll of phantom
workers and forged certificate holders.
“Now that we have cleared ghost and
unqualified employees, we can now effect annual salary increment and
promotions,” he pledged. The purge on ghost jobs and fake certificates
has netted 19,706 and 9,932 victims, respectively, who have been deleted
from the payroll. The verification exercise on academic certificates
covered some 435,000 workers countrywide.
“The government used to pay over 230bn/-
each year to phantom workers in salaries, leave alone other allowances;
the money could have been used to improve the wellbeing of genuine
employees,” argued Dr Magufuli, declaring 52,000 new job vacancies in
the public sector in the coming fiscal year.
On the other hand, President Magufuli
praised the current leadership of the Tanzania Unions’ Congress of
Tanzania (TUCTA) for truly working on the interests of employees,
blaming some past leaders of the trade union for “working for personal
interests.”
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