The National Social Security & Welfare Corporation (NASSCORP); in collaboration with the Ministry of Finance & Development Planning (MFD) and the Civil Service Agency (CSA), concluded a three-week thorough training for Finance and Human Resource Managers from Government Ministries, Agencies and Public Corporations.
The training started October 22, 2019, and was geared towards enabling all participants to understand the registration and contribution processes, how payrolls are received and filed, and how records are kept. Speaking during day two of the training exercise, NASSCORP’s Director-General, Dewitt vonBallmoos, said the training was important because it sought to explain what is deducted and remitted toNASSCORP from employees’ salaries, urging participants to feel free to ask questions.
“I want to assure you participants, today that the pension scheme will help employees to not become a liability on the government after they served Government,” the NASSCORP boss said.
Mr. vonBallmoos also told participants that the exercise was necessary to ensure that employers and employees remain in compliance with contributions while benefits are paid regularly to alleviate abject poverty.
Speaking on behalf of government ministries during phase I of the training, the-Human Resource Director of the Ministry of Finance & Development Planning, James Bobby Kiawu, thanked the Management of NASSCORP for instituting such a fine program.
“It’s very important to know about contributions and how it is deducted and remitted to NASSCORP because more people do not know how to collect their benefits from NASSCORP; our goal is to get the right information to share with the public,” Mr. Kiawu said.
He praised the NASSCORP family for providing the opportunity for stakeholders to know about the schemes and how to claim their benefits from NASSCORP as well as the importance of their contributions. Speaking during Phase II of the training exercise, the CSA boss, Maurine Johnson, told the participants that CSA and NASSCORP are in full coordination to have this exercise made successful in educating employees who are direct beneficiaries of the pension scheme.
The CSA boss said the training will help build employees’ hope in the government as well. She urged the participants to remain patient and understanding of how the schemes work, indicating that it is everybody’s duty to take the message back to their various Agencies, Ministries, and Corporations to have their employees informed.
The exercise under the new law of the Corporation provides wider coverage in order to ensure that the private and public sectors remain in compliance with the law.
According to the new law, the contribution is payable by and on behalf of insured employees, and the contribution rate is 10%, with 2% paid by the employer under the Employment Injury Scheme (EIS), while 4% contribution is paid by employee and is matched by 4% payable by employer under the National Pension Scheme.
Speaking at the end of the three-week training exercise, the Human Resource Director of MFDP, James Bobby Kiawu, thanked the NASSCORP management for affording them the opportunity to attend the training exercise and for their acceptance to partner with them.
He praised the team of facilitators for being “very excellent” and believed that they are moving forward and stressing there will be changes when they get back to their various Ministries and Agencies.
Mr. Kiawu also thanked the participants for their level of cooperation and promised that the NASSCORP’s payroll process, one of the key compliance indicators, will be followed through to the letter. Payrolls will be submitted in the right format. Meanwhile, Director Kiawu told Human Resource Directors to send their soft copies to NASSCORP to ensure that their processes go on smoothly when they reach their retirement period because the Claims Department “Nerve” of NASSCORP.
Delivering a special statement on behalf of the Director-General at the end of the workshop, NASSCORP’s Deputy Director-General Nya D. Twayen, Jr. thanked MFDP Human Resource Director, James Kiawu, for being “one person who started this process in a small way at the ministry level, where he organized a two-day interactive forum with the staff and was fully attended and welcomed by facilitators from NASSCORP.” He added that during the forum, staff of the Ministry was eager to know what NASSCORP had to offer.
Speaking further, Mr. Twayen said the ultimate goal of NASSCORP is to provide comfort for people so that they can know at the end of their working life that they have some financial security and stability.
He told the participants, including Human Resource and Financial Officers, that even though there will be many challenges in mobilizing employees to talk about the schemes, many of those employees who are reluctant to participate in these education exercises will basic information about the program which can translate into said persons forfeiting benefits .
“Those who don’t show up, those who come to lodge complaint, those who don’t ever come to tell you anything about their injuries, to give any information or come to ask you anything are the ones who do not attend the teaching sessions.”
He said the training was meant for the participants to train their staff saying,
“push them hard by making sure that you gather them together and let them do the right thing by listening to you and knowing their rights and responsibilities.”
The NASSCORP deputy boss told the participants that prior to 2016, NASSCORP was not covering presidential appointees; so it makes it a little bit more complex right now. He said most of the people that you were supervising or catering to were either supervisors or your colleagues. But for now, your new challenge is you will be dealing with people who are higher than you and who will already feel that they know more than you.
Assistant Directors, Directors, Assistant Ministers, Deputy Managing Directors, Managing Directors, and Ministers are the personnel the participants will be responsible for, and these too need to be acquainted with their rights and responsibilities about the scheme, the NASSCORP Deputy Director-General stressed.
Mr. Twayen pointed out that many senior officials of government haven’t read the law and they are insisting that their money shouldn’t be cut for social security purposes. He said many of them may not want to assemble and get ID cards, but please let them do it, he urged.
“It is like social security telling you we got all your benefits here. Come for it,” Deputy Director-General Twayen said, continuing, “Make sure that the people come for their claims and let the right people get it.”
The deputy chief executive of NASSCORP said he was confident that with the kind of people that attended the training, the message was well absorbed. He praised the cooperation, especially from the Accountant-General & Comptroller of the Republic of Liberia, Mr. Janga Kowo, who he said got touched by the lack of cooperation in the public sector when it comes to filing for claims.
He added that staffers of NASSCORP are available to assist in providing information on the scheme, stressing,
“If you need us to be present, call and let’s make this work because it benefits you, it makes your job easier, it makes the payment of employees who are injured, or about to be retired easier and builds confidence in the system for people to contribute without complaint, and it helps to make the system stronger and that is the ultimate goal.”
On the payroll issue, the deputy NASSCORP boss said
“We have a state-of-the-art system here. If everyone in Liberia was submitting payroll to NASSCORP electronically, based on the prescribed format that we gave you, we will only need to click’ button and within five minutes, the information will be available. Let us work with the prescribed format to make this work put smiles on our people’s faces at the end of their career.”
Meanwhile, Mr. Twayen has urged HR Directors to acquaint their bosses with their rights and responsibilities under the schemes and not to argue with them, but to provide the provision of the Act that states the law.