By: Kebba AF Touray
The Social Security and Housing Finance Cooperation (SSHFC) funds have been affected by various executive directives, amounting to over GMD2 billion.
This was by the Managing Director, Saloum Manjang, to Members of the Public Enterprise Committee (PEC) of the National Assembly.
“However, we need to put this into context because we were affected by the impact of the various Executive Directives amounting to over GMD2.0 Billion in principal, recovery of which is still a challenge not including the lost interest which could have amounted to over GMD315 million”, Manjang decried.
As explained by one of the directors of the Corporation before PEC Members, the list of investments that were imposed on the Corporation through Executive Directives are as follows:
1. Galia (two ferries)
2. Qatari (GFFI)
3. GAMCO
4. Police Barracks
5. GCAA (fire tenders and ambulances)
6. GGC Loan Guarantee
7. GRTS Satellite
8. GIA Hajj
9. NAWEC Loans
10.Kanilai Housing Project
He said “all the above investments are red herring including one NAWEC Loan (Build, Own and Transfer). That the amount of this loan is D74, 517,000. He said the overall recoveries as at December 2022) is D384,325,843.10 leaving an outstanding amount of D1,615,674,156.90.
An audit report on the administrative expenses of the National Providence Fund (NPF), indicate that their review of the financial statements for the period 2018-21, showed that SSHFC has spent between 13-23% of all contributions on administrative and staff cost.
According to the audit report, this spending rate is unstable due to changes in member contributions, when the administrative and staff costs are individually analyzed, and because of the above, the gap between administrative and staff cost widened from 2019 onward.
The audit report revealed that the total administrative and staff costs as percentage of contributions currently stands at 13%, whilst administrative cost as percentage of contributions progressively declined from 2018 to 2021; that on the contrary, staff cost is unstable with the biggest change occurring in 2019.
That meanwhile, SSHFC has improved its use of the available resources to collect contributions for the period 2018-21, and couple with an increase in member contributions, the Corporation has reduced its expenses as a percentage of contributions over the period 2018-21. The audit report however stated that the SSHFC must still reduce the total expenses to achieve a performance result considered appropriate for the fund it manages.
“We recommend that SSHFC devise cost control measures to ensure that total administrative and operational expenses are kept at or below 10% of member contributions. Or it can otherwise efficiently use its resources to collect more contributions as revenue,” Performance Audit Manager, Omar P Sabally indicated in their audit report.
In response on their part to the Performance Audit Manager’s querries, the SSHFC Management yielded that the matter was well noted, regarding the audit recommendation on administrative expenses of the National Providence Fund.
