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Conrad Gweru
And expectedly, NSSA was on the defensive, ducking and diving and dribbling on questions regarding their investments and minuscule pensions they are giving to pensioners. And in particular, the involvement of former Finance Minister Tendai Biti in shady dealings involving the (mis)investment in a bank owned by his MDC-T colleague, Patterson Timba.
It stinks to high heavens.

In the final analysis, at NSSA money is largely getting misused while pensioners are either failing to access their pensions or getting laughable figures for what they stowed in years of work.

Incredibly, NSSA seems to be fast moving away of its core mandate to look after retired employees and focusing on “quick buck” investments.

It does not need a rocket scientist to guess who gets succoured, which places get fatter, from the returns of such investments. It is not the poor pensioner.  Social security programmes are created to offer protection against loss of income or ill-health and not for the purpose of promoting economic growth or improving economic performance. Social protection encompasses all interventions from public and private bodies intended to relieve households and individuals of the burden of a defined set of risks such as sickness, maternity, unemployment, invalidity, old age, death, provision of health and child support (ILO9 contingencies).

The authority currently manages two social security schemes; the National Pension Scheme and the accident prevention and Workers’ Compensation Scheme. Members of the portfolio committee who attended Monday’s meeting felt mocked by NSSA’s defensive mode as the general manager tried to dodge questions directed at him and his team.

At one point the GM indicated that he had already submitted salary schedules to the Office of the President hence would not be able to disclose the schedule to the committee.

Quizzed if the Office of the President gave him the mandate not to disclose the schedule to any other person including the Portfolio Committee, Mr James Matiza then retracted his statement and promised to submit the schedule by end of week. Many a times, the NSSA boss had to be reminded to respond directly to questions posed. The authority failed to explain clearly to members how its investment stance was benefiting its members. The institution collects US$15 million while US$6 million of the total is disbursed to beneficiaries on a monthly basis.

Members of the Portfolio Committee felt that the institution could be presiding over bad investments following its US$20 million investment in Capital Bank and another US$25 million  in CFX Bank, which are both on the verge of collapse.  In addition, members were worried that the institution had become a conduit for access to money for corrupt activities in parastatals as members cited Zesa and Noczim as some of the parastatals that  benefited from loans financed by NSSA through banks.

NSSA also bought overpriced Star Africa shares worth $12 million, an investment which Matiza indicated was authorised by the board while its investment committee, which he chairs, had rejected it.  The authority’s US$2,3 million investment in Ekhusileni Hospital in Bulawayo is yet to realise any benefit as the hospital is still to be opened to the benefit of the public. Also worrying would be a situation where the board overrides the decision made by management concerning investments.

They override in whose interest?
These are some of the questions left unattended.  One can justifiably feel that NSSA management are vulnerable and incompetent as it opened to pressure from the board and ministers who had more to say on the day to day management of the authority, taking over from management role.

A number of individuals and stakeholders have since registered their disapproval of NSSA’s stance as the authority is now involved in many sectors abandoning its beneficiaries.

It would appear that all NSSA is thinking of are strategies to bring in money that has since benefited its staff through loans for vehicles, housing and school fees assistance while its beneficiaries are languishing in poverty.

Some of its schemes, like housing, benefit the urbanites only while retirees in the rural areas are frozen out.
There is a lot of money that NSSA could be investing that has not been claimed. Some of its members cannot even afford to travel long distances to Harare to initiate claims given the absurdity in that they may actually pay more to collect less.