NSSA plans to revive dead assets

LIVINGSTONE MARUFU

The National Social Security Authority (NSSA), a deep-pocketed State-owned pay-as-you-go pension scheme, is planning  to turn  its dormant or dead assets nationwide into productive assets, a move that will help unlock badly needed cash for pensioners, Business Times can report.

NSSA  owns about 111 properties across the country. However, NSSA will also put three more assets into service in Harare and Mutare before the year is out.

Paul Mavima, the outgoing Minister of Labor, Public Service, and Social Services, claimed that a list of dead assets had been found throughout the country, including the Beitbridge Hotel and the Ekusileni Medical Centre in Bulawayo, among many others.

President Mnangagwa has not yet announced the members of his new administration after being elected to a second term last week.

However, it is anticipated that Mavima will be appointed into the new administration.

The development  follows NSSA’s recent restoration of St. Tropez in Harare’s Eastlea neighborhood.

Mavima claimed the Authority developed a refocused strategy as a result of criticism for adopting a laissez-faire attitude toward the management of its property portfolio, which cost NSSA millions of dollars in shoddy deals.

“We should turn our current dead assets into productive assets  for the benefit of the pensioner. I believe this asset from now on will be sweated for the benefit of the pension. The renovation of the St Tropez apartments is a perfect piece of the Authority concerted effort to provide decent accomodation facilities to the urban population.

“It’s a concerted effort for the authority  to sweat its assets for the benefit  of the pensioners.   It is a pleasure St Tropez asset which has lied idle for seven years to be soon seen productive again for the benefit of NSSA and pensioners,” Mavima said.

“It is also a strategy we have for NSSA  which will see the transformation of a  dead asset into cash cows. As a matter of fact there are quite a number of these idle assets  for NSSA.

“We are pushing for the  NSSA Beitbridge Hotel, Ekusileni Medical Centre in Bulawayo and some of the land in upmarket places to get some returns out of it and there are so many in Victoria Falls and everywhere around the country,” he said.

Mavima stated that preparations for the operationalization of Ekusileni Medical Center following the Covid-19 pandemic were well under way. To this end, NSSA invested US$50m in 2021 to help equip the building, which is currently designated as a Covid-19 treatment center.

He said after the pandemic, Ekusileni will be converted into a training centre for medical specialists, in collaboration with the National University of Science and Technology.

“NSSA is  working on developing a multi-functional conference centre at Stand 71 Borrowdale Brook Township, better known as Borrowdale Country Manor. This is being done to derive value from the property.

“These are some of the ills that the new NSSA seeks to correct because we have a fiduciary responsibility to safeguard the funds we manage on behalf of members and beneficiaries who include pensioners, the disabled, widows and orphans,” he said.

NSSA is working on establishing an upmarket cluster housing scheme on Stand 14 of Lot C Borrowdale Estate (49 Borrowdale Road), measuring just over 15ha which has an estimated current market value of US$2,4m.

Mavima said technocrats in NSSA should stand up and see the value in these properties and make them useful for the benefit of the pensioners.

“It is my fervent hope that NSSA’s commitment in improving infrastructure in the entire country will contribute significantly  towards the attainment of the national goals that we have.We would like a kind of hotel arrangement  which gives  huge returns,” Mavima said.

He said the  attainment of Vision 2030 centres around the deliverance of decent accommodation which meets the aspirations of the Zimbabweans.

“The sweating of the property portfolio will provide inflation proof and capital assstes to the fund.In the past few years NSSA has embarked on an investment strategy to monetise land banks  and resolve  some of its non performing investments to boost investment  income of returns for the benefit of pensioners.

“735 Glaudina stands, 49 Borrowdale stands were already developed and are being monetised. NSSA is also doing a partnership on Liberation City shopping mall where the service station is already working,” Mavima said.

The Authority is embracing its huge responsibility of creating viable investments guided by the fundamental role of the pension fund to pay living pensions to its members.