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Tanzania: Social Security Law Delayed
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The Citizen (Dar es Salaam)
21 May 2008
Posted to the web 21 May 2008
Zephania Ubwani
Arusha
The Social Security Act will become operational next year, according to Labour, Employment and Youth Development minister Prof Juma Kapuya.
The minister said here yesterday that the law provided for a one-year transition period before it became operational.
The minister revealed this at a conference for social security and protection for the East African Community partner states.
He said the National Social Security Policy of 2003 is within the framework of the on-going reforms taken by the government on the social security sector.
The minister called on the other EAC partner states to initiate reforms in the social security sector so as to enable the region to harmonise social security systems in the region.
In Tanzania, social security is comprised of six mandatory social security institutions and one health insurance scheme.
These institutions are the National Social Security Fund (NSSF), mainly covering the private sector and the Public Service Pensions Fund (PSPF), largely for the central government sector.
Others are the Parastatal Pension Fund (PPF), designed to cover the parastatal organisations, Local Authorities Pension Fund (LAPF) for local authorities and the Government Employees Provident Fund (GEPF), mainly for Police and Prisons Services.
The Zanzibar Social Security Fund (ZSSF) covers the whole employment sector in the Isles while the National Health Insurance (NHIF) provides health services mainly to the central government employees.
However, Prof Kapuya said the social security sector in Tanzania was still inherent with several problems despite the on-going reforms.
These include lack of portability across schemes, lack of harmonisation of the benefits offered and multiple reporting systems of the social security systems.
Others are low coverage which is only confined to the formal employment sector, unregulated competition among the funds as well as uncoordinated investments.
The cabinet recently approved the establishment of a regulatory body for the social security pension funds. The proposal is currently being scrutinised by the legal experts before it is presented to the parliament.
The new body would regulate the activities of the social security funds operating in the country, making them operate professionally in tandem with the socio-economic changes taking place within the country..
It would also enable the pension funds to operate more efficiently and ensuring that members of the social security funds were the main beneficiaries of their respective schemes.
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According to reliable sources, the government expects that the number of employees joining the social security pension schemes to increase once the regulatory body was in place.
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