By Sariba Manneh
The Public Enterprise Committee (PEC) has tasked Social Security and Housing Finance Corporation (SSHFC) to initiate a normal retirement benefits processing scheme.
PEC made this recommendation in the performance Audit reports by the Auditor General on provision of water in urban, pre-urban and provincial growth centres by NAWEC and the Management of Social Security funds by Social Security and Housing Finance Corporation.
Tabling the report, the Chairperson of PEC, Lamin J Sanneh, said “overall SSHFC should initiate normal retirement benefits processing when members are in their final year of statutory service so that bottlenecks are addressed before the retirement benefits fall due”.
PEC revealed that SSHFC should provide timely account information to employers and employees and timely pursue employers who have not paid their contributions to fulfil those dues.
He said SSHFC should also strengthen computation verification to ensure that yearly contributions are correctly summed as well as establish a structure that ensures that investment policies undertaking and performance are regularly reviewed to enhance timely information for corrective action.
PEC added that SSHFC should use its resources to collect more contributions or reduce the total administrative and operational expenses, to ensure that expenses do not exceed 10 percent of the members’ contributions.
“SSHFC should identify and document delay factors for claims and use this information to design and implement initiative to correct problems causing delay in claiming processing.
