NSSA tightens statutes to curtail non-compliance

CLOUDINE MATOLA

National Social Security Authority’s (NSSA), a deep-pocketed State-owned pay-as-you-go pension scheme, has made it mandatory for contractors and suppliers to possess a clearance certificate when bidding for tenders as part of measures to enforce compliance, Business Times can report.

NSSA is battling low compliance as some companies are failing to submit their monthly returns to the State-owned company.

The new rule was revealed by NSSA deputy director marketing and public relations, Tendai Mutseyekwa.

“Various initiatives have been put in place to ensure compliance to NSSA statutes. Ordinarily the Authority uses the carrot and stick approach in compliance enforcement. However, NSSA is empowered to employ stiffer measures/penalties to enforce compliance, which includes garnish orders where soft methods of debt recovery fail but this is used as a last resort.

“The Authority is continuing to enforce compliance through making the NSSA Clearance Certificate mandatory when bidding for tenders by contractors and other suppliers,” Mutseyekwa told Business Times, a market leader in business, financial and economic reportage.

In addition, Mutseyekwa said NSSA statutes have been tightened to curtail non-compliance for example imposition of penalties for late registration and non-submission of returns.

Shepherd Muperi, director of social security at the NSSA, weighed in saying the low rate of compliance in the country has an adverse effect on both revenue and benefit payout.

“…we have a low compliance rate in the country. I know that even for occupational pension funds, Insurance and Pension Commission (IPEC) will tell you that some employers do not remit contributions on time.

“Others will not even remit if they are not followed up, so this actually negatively impacts on the revenue that we get, which will also affect the level of benefits we will pay to beneficiaries  if we don’t get the contributions on time,” Muperi said.

He said NSSA has been engaging stakeholder engagements  to increase.

In addition, NSSA has been improving its services to promote voluntary compliance.

“We try to conduct some awareness symposiums so that people appreciate that they should contribute to NASA. And we also do some stakeholder engagement to raise awareness.

“ We also conduct a blitz to make sure that we do door-to-door inspections on employers for them to contribute. We try as much as possible to improve our services, to promote voluntary compliance. It’s not more to do with the enforcement of the law. If people see value for money, they are more likely to voluntarily comply.

So, we are also focusing on improving on our benefits, improving on our service delivery, as well as improving on the engagements, so that they voluntarily comply, contribute without being forced,” he said.