By Sharon Tibenda

14^th May 2012:

The National Social Security Fund [NSSF] has announced plans to introduce a wide range of benefits for its members as soon as the pensions sector is liberalised.  The planned products include a housing/mortgage product, unemployment benefit, medical benefit, maternity benefit, school fees benefit and funeral grant.

The plans were revealed by the Fund’s Managing Director Richard Byarugaba as he announced that the Fund’s monthly contributions collections hit 43 billion Shillings at the end of April 2012, a 17.4% increase from 36.6 billion Shillings collected at the beginning of the Financial Year.

Byarugaba says that this consistent increase in contributions collections is due to entrenchment of the Relationship Management business model the Fund adopted in 2010.  He adds that the Fund has also registered improvement in performance in other key areas of investments, benefits payment and cost control.

“Employers have become more and more responsive to our business model that has now taken root. As we come to the end of this Financial Year, we expect our contributions collections performance to improve further,” Byarugaba said.

NSSF MD also said the Fund had to a large extent surpassed its performance targets across the board since the beginning of the Financial Year in July 2011.

“In addition to increase in contributions, income from our investments continues to increase and money paid to our members in benefits has increased. We have also brought our administration costs under control,” Byarugaba explained.

According to performance figures, as at the end of April 2012, the Fund’s performance over the last 10 months is as follows:

• Income from investments increased by 53% from UGX 16.4 billion at the start of the Financial Year to UGX 25.1 billion in the month of April.
• Cost to income ratio has reduced from 35% at the start of the Financial Year to a manageable 16% as at end of April 2012.

Byarugaba adds that the Fund forecasts the trends to continue growing and will surpass last Financial Year’s financial performance.  This assertion means that the Fund may announce a better interest rate at the end of this Financial Year.

Byarugaba also insists that the Fund is focused on growing the value of members’ savings over the long term. Contributors were paid 7% interest on their savings last year. END.  Please login to www.ugandacorrespondent.com every Monday to read our top stories and anytime mid-week for our news updates.