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| Momodou |
Posted - 17 Apr 2018 : 13:14:09
Pensioners demand pay increment
The point: Tuesday, April 17, 2018
http://thepoint.gm/africa/gambia/article/pensioners-demand-pay-increment
 Gambia pensioners have demanded that pension funds be increased from the Social Security Finance Corporation (SSHFC) during an organised meeting at the Friendship Hostel at the Independence Stadium in Bakau.
The meeting was organised by the Social Security to encourage dialogue between them and pensioners on reasons for a protracted over 6 years none increment of their pension funds.
The pensioners say increment is made on their funds every three months or periodical pension benefits. They said that the then managing director, Edward Graham had promised to effect the increment in December 2017 but before that period came he was replaced.
Speaking in an interview with this reporter, Alhagie Dullo M.H. Sambou, a former employee of The Gambia Corporative Union who retired in 1998 said pensioners are people who worked for the nation for years and retired with no illegal record of activity that could result in their disqualification to receive pension benefits.
He said pensioners are God fearing during their employment periods, saying if there is any assistant from government; be it national or international through the Social Security, the first people they should give priority to should be the pensioners. “This is because they are the ones who made SSHFC to exist.”
Mr. Sambou said the corporation should give priority to them by helping in the enhancement and facilitation of pensioners’ livelihood and their families by regularly paying what belongs to them.
Rene Geoffrey Renner, retired former managing director of the Corporation said Social Security is not a state enterprise as assumed by many people, saying it is owned by people who are mainly working in the private sector. “Social Security is owned by shareholders, employees and employers or institutions not own by government.”
Mr. Renner said the problem with the corporation is that it is the owners who should appoint board of directors and not the government, adding that government has interest in Social Security because it mobilises lot of funds.
According to him, loans were disbursed to the government from the corporation’s funds which he said should not have happened, saying that happened because the government is controlling the corporation.
Muhammed Manjang, managing director of the corporation said pension increment is something that has to be unilaterally decided by the management and has to go through evaluation process before approval.
He said the evaluation was conducted by professional actuary who advised them not to increase the country’s pension benefit for now because it would bring problem to the corporation’s funds. “We can only go by what the professionals advised us and this is why we have not increase pension benefits”, he said.
He said the corporation has made significant assets investment that is not performing to their expectation, saying most of the investments were done without proper review and analysis. “We have not necessarily been thorough in our investment analysis and lots of them are not performing which is causing us stress at the corporation,” he said.
He said as a management, they are having dialogue with all parties to see how best they can recover their funds, saying it is not going to be easy because lot of the parties are parastatals that are also facing difficulty.
Author: Arfang M.S. Camara |
| 1 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| toubab1020 |
Posted - 18 Apr 2018 : 18:14:29
The finance head of Gambia’s social security corporation has told a commission of inquiry on Wednesday that the private company of exiled former president Yahya Jammeh owes the pensions body over USD 35 million.
Abdoulie Cham told the commission of inquiry chaired by Sourahata Janneh that the Kanilai Group International (KGI), registered in the name of the former president, owes the Social Security and Housing Finance Corporation (SSHFC) D 1.7 billion (US$ 35.9 million).
He said the money was given out as loans and withdrawn from several accounts including the national provident fund after an instruction by Jammeh who was then the president, local media report.
Besides KGI, some parastatals and companies including The Gambia Radio And Television Services (GRTS) and the Gambia Groundnut Corporation (GGC) also received D 37 million (USD 781,436) and D 222 million (USD 4,688,620) respectively in the same fashion.
Abdoulie Cham said the monies were never retrieved after several attempts as the companies denied responsibility for the debt. “They tell us the loan was given to them through a directive from the office of the former president,” he said.
The Commission which started its hearing in August asked the SSHFC director of finance to reappear with documents to prove his claim.
Over a dozen people have appeared before the commission set up by the Gambian authorities to probe assets acquired by the country’s ousted ruler.
Jammeh is accused of corruption and spending millions of dollars in the last three years of his rule as well as emptying the state coffers before he went on exile earlier this year.
At least 184 landed properties, 95 bank accounts and 17 companies associated to him have been seized.
Yahya Jammeh was beaten by Adama Barrow in the December 2016 elections and he refused to cede power creating tension in the small West African country.
West African regional bloc ECOWAS initiated series of meetings for him to cede power, and it took six weeks of negotiations, military intervention and immunity deals for him to agree to leave power and go into exile in Equatorial Guinea.
http://www.africanews.com/2017/10/05/exiled-jammeh-s-private-company-owes-pension-fund-over-35m-gambia-inquiry//
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