Fresh row brews over NSSF mid-term money

Mr Richard Byarugaba, the managing director of the National Social Security Fund (standing), talks to some of the people who went to apply for their  mid-tern benefits at Kololo Ceremonial Grounds in Kampala yesterday. PHOTO/ SYLIVIA KATUSHABE

What you need to know:

  • A Fund board member and ex-workers’ lawmaker claims the regulations used to qualify eligible claimants are wrong and exclude thousands of otherwise eligible members, but the government tells Dr Sam Lyomoki to re-read the law or push for its amendment.  

The government and National Social Security Fund (NSSF) management last night maintained that eligible claimants of mid-term benefits are individuals aged 45 or older who have contributed to the Fund for at least a decade, dismissing claims by former Workers’ Member of Parliament Sam Lyomoki.

Dr Lyomoki, a member of NSSF Board, ruffled feathers when he in a March 4, 2022 press statement, circulated to media only yesterday, characterised a provision in the mid-term access regulation that a beneficiary must have contributed for 120 months, as “misinterpreting the law”.
“This 120-contribution thresh-hold was not in the spirit of the law as it was being debated in Parliament, but [it] is now being administratively smuggled into the equation by a misinterpretation of the letter of the law,” he noted.

In a rejoinder yesterday, Attorney General Kiryowa Kiwanuka, who is the chief legal government advisor, said the spirit of the law derives from the wording of the law, in this case the NSSF (Amendment) Act, 2021.
Parliament for the second time enacted the legislation last November and President Museveni signed it into law on January 4 before Gender and Labour Minister Betty Amongi last week issued the regulations to operationalise the mid-term access provisions of the Act.
Section 20A of the law titled, mid-term access to benefits, provides in sub-section 2 that “a member who is forty-five years of age and above and who has made contributions to the Fund…for at least ten years, is eligible to mid-term access to his or her benefits, of a sum not exceeding 20 percent of his or her accrued benefits.”

Those with disabilities can under the law withdraw up to 50 percent of their accrued benefits.
Seizing on the lettering of the law, AG Kiryowa said the NSSF (Amendment), 2021 “does not say one should have been a member for 10 years, and membership and contribution are two different things”.
“[For] those saying being a member for 10 years [means eligibility], are they saying that if one has been a member for 10 years, but contributed [to NSSF] for 1 year, they should be eligible for mid-term access?” he asked.

He added: “My reading of the law is a person must have contributed for 10 years to be eligible. The spirit of the law is in the wording, and the word used in the Amendment [Act] is ‘contribution’,” said.
Similarly, NSSF managing director Richard Byarugaba said the only way to change the mid-term regulation is if the principal Act is amended.
“Mr Lyomoki should know that, that problem was created by Parliament and it is Parliament to cure it,” he said.

Dr Lyomoki, the secretary general of Central Organisation of Free Trade Unions (COFTU), had argued that a narrower definition of a contributor to NSSF had unjustly excluded more than 80,000 members that in his views should have benefitted.
“So, we have to cater for members who have contributed to the Fund for a period of 10 years and more, notwithstanding whether those contributions have been consistent or not over that period. The original draft of the regulation generated by stakeholders had a provision to clarify this misinterpretation,” he noted in the press statement.

Our investigations show that in the original draft of the mid-term access regulations, it had been provided that an eligible claimant would be a person aged 45 years or older and “…shall be deemed to have contributed if his or her account was maintained with the Fund (NSSF) for at least ten years from the date of his or her first contribution to the Fund”.

However, when the Gender ministry forwarded the draft NSSF (mid-term access to benefits) regulations, 2022 for review to the Attorney General’s office, a one H. Lwabi on behalf of the Solicitor General, the technical head in the AG’s office, wrote back to Permanent Secretary Aggrey Kibenge on March 1, communicating that revising the definition of a contributor in the regulations “would have the effect of amending Section 20A [of the NSSF (Amendment) Act, 2021, which requires a member to have contributed for at least ten years”.
The office of the government legal advisor recommended that the alternative definition in the draft regulation be deleted, which was done.

It would appear Dr Lyomoki, whom we were unable to reach last night for clarification, knew only of the first blueprint of the regulation and was unaware of the legal opinion by the Solicitor General’s office, rendering him to conclude that “the clarifying provision was mysteriously dropped from the final draft of the regulations”.

In a media dialogue on Monday, NSSF’s Byarugaba said the decision to retain in the regulation the definition of eligible members provided in the amended Act reduced the number of beneficiaries, estimated at 130,000 in June last year, to 41,174 as at March.
“The first time this matter came up, we looked at the worst case scenario; those who had saved for 10 years. It meant that you could open an account, not pay in money, but then ten years later claim your money,” he said.

He disclosed that the payment which would have been due to the disqualified members was Shs111b, roughly the Fund’s monthly collection from employers.
Under the original NSSF law, an employee in an entity employing at least 5 persons remits 5 percent of their monthly salary, matched with the employer’s contribution of an equivalent of 10 percent of the employee’s 10 pay, to the Fund.  
This is what is called a contribution which an individual member, under both the revised law and mid-term access regulation, should have made to NSSF for 120 months or 10 years.

Mr Francis Atoke, the solicitor general, when presented yesterday with Dr Lyomoki’s concerns, said he had not seen the compliant and would not comment.  
However, Gender and Labour ministry Permanent Secretary Kibenge said the emerging confusion was a result of an omission by Parliament, where Dr Lyomoki was a member, to expressly define who NSSF member and contributor are...

“Dr Lyomoki is being unfair to us because he was in Parliament when that Bill was being debated…,” he said, “the law defines contribution [as] a monthly contribution of an employee of five percent and the 10 percent of the employer to make 15 percent. So, if someone remitted for two months in the entire year, does the law refer to him as [mid-term eligible] member?”

Nonetheless, Attorney General said now that a dispute has arisen as to the interpretation of the NSSF (Amendment) Act, 2021, they will examine the Hansard, the official record of parliamentary proceedings, the Act itself and the mid-term access regulations and consult to see if a policy or amendment would be necessary to be introduced.
Separately, PS Kibenge suggested that the impasse can only be resolved by returning the law to Parliament for an amendment or court declaration, if anyone lodges a petition.


Law, rules & claim
Section 20A(2) of the NSSF (Amendment) Act, 2021.
“A member who is 45 years of age and above and who has made contributions to the Fund…for at least 10 years, is eligible to mid-term access to his or her benefits, of a sum not exceeding 20 percent of his or her accrued benefits.”

Solicitor General’s March 1  legal opinion to Gender ministry PS:
“In reviewing the regulations, the following provisions were deleted :-
(a)Regulation 4(3) seeking to qualify 10 years’ contribution referred in Section 20A to mean ‘maintenance of an account for at least 10 years from the date of application’. This would have an effect of amending Section 20A, which requires a member to have contributed for at least 10 years.”

Dr Sam Lyomoki, NSSF board member and ex-Workers’ MP:
“This 120-contribution thresh-hold was not in the spirit of the law as it was being debated in Parliament, but [it] is now being administratively smuggled into the equation by a misinterpretation of the letter of the law.”


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