Africa-Press – Uganda. National Social Security Fund (NSSF) has said improved compliance will be key achieving the Fund’s target to its size to Shs50 trillion by 2035.
Speaking at the launch of an upgraded web-based whistleblower platform, Mr Patrick Ayota, the NSSF managing director, said if well supported, the platform will see compliance increase to 60 percent, which will be key in supporting the Fund to achieve its vision 2035 that seeks to grow the size of the Fund from Shs19.4 trillion to Shs50 trillion.
“We are determined to address noncompliance, thus, we are innovating on ways to curb this vice. In the past few months we have had several engagements with employers in different parts of the country and urged them to fulfill their statutory obligation of remitting social security contributions for their employees,” Mr Ayota said, noting that the web-based whistleblower platform was part of the larger plan to strengthen the Fund as well as ensure growth of Uganda’s social security system.
NSSF has in the past offered amnesty to non-compliant employers but some continue to be non-compliant.
NSSF data indicates that out of the 36,000 registered active employers, only 20,000 are remitting employee contributions, which returns a compliance rate of about 57 percent.
The law demands that employee and employer contributions are remitted at least by the 15th of every month.
Mr Horace Rwakabureeta, the NSSF senior manager compliance, said noncompliance by employers remains a serious issues across the country, yet just a few employees are speaking up.
Therefore, he said, the upgraded platform, which is user-friendly allows a whistleblower to be anonymous if they so wish and can also follow up their complaint to see how NSSF is progressing in causing non-compliant entities to act. The platform also allows government labour inspectors to report government contractors who refuse to remit employee contributions.
The law demands that all employers, irrespective of the number of people they employ or the size of the company, to remit social security contributions for their employees.
Over the last two years, NSSF has recovered Shs8.9b through litigation and is currently pursing more than 390 cases of non-compliant employers.
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