President Yoweri Museveni has agreed to workers having mid-term access to their savings.”Met with workers representatives, NSSF management, Ministers of Finance and that of Gender, Labour and Social development, and I have agreed in principle that workers that qualify, access 20% of their savings, mid-term,” he stated.
(Persons aged 45years and have saved with NSSF for tens years will be able to access up to 20% of their savings.)
The president noted that incase it doesn’t work, we shall learn from it.
“You remember Shakespeare’s play The Merchant of Venice? Shylock with my pound of flesh whether you die or what! For the NRM not to be that Shylock and since these people think this is the solution, let’s go ahead. If it doesn’t work out, we shall see. Learn together instead of being like shylock,” the president said.
The commencement date will be set in the statutory instrument, supervision of the fund is by the ministry of Finance, while the NSSF managing director is a member of the board of directors.
According to Observer, the conflicting information and change in wording regarding the National Social Security (Amendment) bill forced the president to push a major decision on the workers’ mid-term access to today.
The president said he was more concerned about destroying the viability of the fund. “The fear was if you do that, you degrade huge money put together and which the fund is using to invest instead of going abroad to beg. Also, a worker may end up getting less by Shs 30 million at his retirement,” he said.
According to the MD NSSF Richard Byarugaba, the fund collects Shs 125 billion a month, Shs 1.5 trillion per year and pays up to Shs 900bn for members qualifying in other benefits.
“We agreed to schedule it. We don’t pay all at a go but about 20 per cent of members in a certain period and have also had a criterion like age and amount saved,” Amongi said.
Every month, institutions deduct 5 per cent of employees’ salaries as a contribution to NSSF, the employers top it up with 10 percent while NSSF earns them 12 per cent.