NSSF Uganda

Barbra Teddy Arimi, Head of Marketing and Corporate Affairs presents awards to a representative for Gerald Tenywa as first runner-up and Ronald Musoke from The Independent a winner in the Urbanisation, Land and Property segment.

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A myriad of circumstances converge to create challenges in achieving comprehensive coverage, including:

Frequent transitions between jobs and work locations,
Fluctuating and often low contributory capacity,
The absence of formal employer-employee relationships,
Diminished literacy levels or language barriers, especially pertinent to migrant workers,
Comparatively lower levels of organization in contrast to formal sector workers,
Geographical isolation, particularly in remote rural areas,
Obstacles pertaining to administrative access, such as the lack of identification documents and unfamiliarity with paperwork protocols.

Magid Fathallah, Regional Coordinator, ISSA: Speaking of challenges, certain groups pose difficulties when it comes to coverage. These groups encompass the self-employed, wage labourers lacking formal employment contracts, family labour participants, segments of the informal economy such as rural agriculture, fishing, and construction, as well as distinct categories like internal and international migrant workers, seasonal workers, and domestic workers.

Marcelo Abi-Ramia Caetano, Secretary General, ISSA together with Magid Fathallah, Regional Coordinator, ISSA, Hon. Dominic Mafwabi Gidudu, State Minister for Elderly Affairs and Patrick Ayota, Managing Director, NSSF officially launch the ISSA Liason Office at NSSF Head Office on 14th Floor, Workers House.

Hon. Dominic Mafwabi Gidudu, Minister of State for Elderly Affairs: The second facet of the conference theme, which is, Innovation, addresses the area of New Product Innovation and Sustainability of the Fund.

Let me also connect the dots:

From research conducted by the Fund, NSSF savers have told over the years that they would like to be empowered and derive more value throughout their journey with the Fund from the point of entry to exit.

The Fund must therefore innovate products and services that address the short-term and long-term social security needs of the members if it is indeed to provide real social security. I have therefore challenged the Fund to provide more value in health, education, agriculture, and financial empowerment. I extend the same challenge to our sister Funds in East Africa.

Lastly, over the last 5 years, we have seen evidence pointing to the fact that the traditional way of social security administration cannot lead to adequate coverage and sustainability of our Funds in East Africa.

Simply put, the benefits paid out of the Funds, such as NSSF Uganda, are at a threshold of outstripping the contributions collected. Europe is already facing this sustainability crisis.

Luckily for us, it is not too late. I would like to also extend this challenge to all of us: How do we ensure the sustainability of the social security sector in East Africa? I look forward to hearing from the specific country case studies on this matter.

In conclusion, it is my pleasure to launch the ISSA Liaison Office for East Africa and install the Liaison Officer, hosted by NSSF Uganda. You have my support as you promote social security excellence in East Africa. For God and my country.

Hon. Dominic Mafwabi Gidudu, Minister of State for Elderly Affairs speaking on behalf of the Hon. Betty Amongi, Minister of Gender, Labour and Social Development: On behalf of the Government and as the Minister in charge of social security, I have the pleasure to welcome you all to Uganda. We are privileged to host the International Social Security Association (ISSA) Technical Seminar on Leveraging Digitalization and Innovation to extend social security coverage in East Africa.

This technical conference is timely, mostly because Innovation and Digitalisation are driving the global transformation of nations on one hand and corporations on the other. This trend is likely to continue and accelerate in the medium to long term.
In Uganda, we are privileged that HE the President assented to legislation, the NSSF Act, as amended that specifically enjoins the Fund to expand social security coverage and innovate new products for the members.

Connecting the dots, one half of the theme, that is Digitalisation, addresses the area of social security expansion. Here is how:
Uganda’s working population is about 17 million Ugandans. NSSF Uganda currently provides social security services to just 10%. By law, the Fund has the mandate to extend coverage to all eligible workers, yet the majority are in the informal sector and agriculture. It is not possible to serve 17 million people through brick and mortar.

It is therefore inevitable that the NSSF Uganda must embrace Digitalisation to serve the entire country effectively and efficiently.

Marcelo Abi-Ramia Caetano: I was born in a hospital that was managed by Social Security in Brazil so my life began with a link to Social Security. It was a birth that was not so simple but I'm here talking to you and we see how Social Security was important for my birth. When I was a teenager, my father was unemployed but we were able to get employment insurance through his Social Security which made me able to study.

My parents both get their pensions however my father passed away. My mother received a survivor's benefit which relieved me of sending her money to continue surviving. So as you can see, from my own experience, I was given hope to make my life better through Social Security.

We will be working today on very concrete aspects. We will be sharing experiences from East Africa, on coverage extension and using technology. We will be discussing the programs and activities of the near future, the next two, or three years for the region.

Keep in mind that this is a means to achieve something much greater. It's to promote Social Security and see how our work, is relevant in making life better.

Marcelo Abi-Ramia Caetano, Secretary General, International Social Security Association: By launching and inaugurating the East Africa Liaison Office in Uganda we have to opportunity to meet the steering committee for the region that will continue to do the work for the future in the sense of seeing what the major needs of the region are in terms of Social Security.

In that sense, how can we collaborate with ISSA to develop a program of activities that can be virtual or face-to-face, in which we can do things together, to make the lives of people better? We are doing relevant work today by sharing these experiences of coverage, extension, and biotechnology to make the lives of people better, I think that is something that we must all have in our minds.

I always see these things as means to achieve a major purpose, a purpose to see how relevant Social Security is to our lives as Social Security employees and most of all, for the lives of people of our country today. We all have fears that will come with old age, but at the same time, we can also see how Social Security can turn these fears into hopes.

That is the most important thing to go home with and this is why I'm proud of working in Social Security to be able to provide a better life to people. I'm not saying this because I am the secretary general of the ISSA but I am using my own experience and my family's own experience. I have seen how Social Security can transform fears into hopes, or how it is possible for Social Security to minimise the fears that we face.

Peter Kimbowa: NSSF is one of those institutions whose culture revolves around innovation and digitalisation in its policy.

For us as the board, we always ask ourselves just two questions. The first one is what are we missing? The second one is what is the next opportunity? These are two questions which are very simple, but as a board, they may not be very simple.

Why? Because what is missing takes you to deeper levels of imagination. You have to find your parallel missing in spite of the portrait. What is the next opportunity? What is the next frontier? Will you join the government? The answer is to work with the government to invest aggressively in digital infrastructure.

Why? Because what we are doing is embedded in digital and analytic data used to guide decision-making. How do we demystify? How do we democratise? How do we incentivise innovation? That is going to be very important.

Peter Kimbowa, Chairman Board of Directors, NSSF Uganda: We join the Managing Director in appreciating the International Social Security Association (ISSA) for selecting NSSF Uganda to host the East Africa International Social Security Association Liason Office.

This is the most opportune time for us to lead this conversation on the two important topics of digitalisation and innovation. If I were to talk about innovation, I would refer to the Stone Age, which did not come to an end because it had run out of souls, but because innovation could have been there.

We also know that candles and the electric bulb did not come about because there was continuous improvement in the candle. There was a major breakthrough in scientific research and exploration. The journey in digitalisation is going to be a long one, but it is achievable. We are going to have misses, but we also are going to have hits.

Innovation and leveraging digitalisation are based on a foundation of inquiry exploration and of what is possible and what is not possible.

Patrick Ayota: Secondly, our citizens are living longer. In Uganda, the life expectancy is about 63 years, while the East African average is about 60 years, with Rwanda leading the way at about 69. With increasing life expectancy comes the question of adequacy – are our members saving enough to last them longer in their retirement?

Thirdly, all our economies are dominated by the informal sector which operates on a different time horizon compared to a traditional social security fund. How do we bring this informal sector, which has the capacity and willingness to save if it makes sense to them, into the social security net?

Fourth and last, all our countries are experiencing a boom in internet and mobile phone pe*******on. Can we pivot from the” traditional service centre” in a building to a “digital service centre” by taking advantage of mobile and internet technology?

Some answers lie in leveraging Digitalisation and Innovation, our theme for this technical workshop.

Hon Ministers and invited guests, I am confident over these 2 days, we will indeed find many answers from the various country experiences that will be presented.

NSSF Uganda will share our own digitalisation journey, our unique internal and external innovation approach through our Hi-Innovator Programme, and how we are creating our own future through the expansion of social security coverage to at least 50% of the working population by 2035.
Lastly, Hon Ministers and invited guests, NSSF Uganda was elected the new ISSA Focal Liaison Office for East Africa at the last World Social Security Forum in Marrakech, Morocco in October last year.
The Liaison Office will be responsible for promoting dialogue and cooperation between ISSA members in the East Africa region, organising technical seminars on regional priority topics, hosting ISSA Academy workshops, and promoting the sharing of good practices in line with the ISSA guidelines.

We pledge to support the Liaison Office to execute this mandate to promote social security excellence in the region.

Patrick Ayota, Managing Director, NSSF Uganda: I have the pleasure of welcoming Delegates from our sister Funds from Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, South Sudan, and delegates from the International Social Security Association (ISSA) Secretariat in Geneva.

Please feel at home.

Hon Ministers and invited guests, NSSF Uganda is proud to host the “Technical Seminar on Leveraging Digitalization and Innovation to extend Social Security Coverage in East Africa.”

There is no better time for the East African Social Security Funds to work together to bring more and more people into the social security net because we are facing similar challenges.

For instance, our population is young, with a different mindset. How do we convince these young people that saving willingly for the long term is worthwhile?

The International Social Security Association (ISSA) is the world’s leading international organization for social security institutions, government departments and agencies. Founded in 1927 under the auspices of the International Labour Organization, ISSA today has over 320 member institutions from over 160 countries. ISSA’s main objective is to promote excellence in social security administration through professional guidelines, expert knowledge, services, and support to enable its members to develop dynamic social security systems and policies throughout the world.

The Fund has been a member of ISSA for over ten years and has played key roles at international events like the World Social Security Forum, Regional Social Security Forum for Africa, and technical seminars, among others.

For the next two days, the Fund will play host to an assembly of over 130 local and international delegates gathered for the inauguration of the International Social Security Association's Liaison Office.

During the recent World Social Security Forum (WSSF) held from October 24th to 28th, 2022, in Marrakech, Morocco hosted by CDG Prévoyance, NSSF Uganda was elected ISSA focal point/liaison office for the East Africa region.

In its capacity, the Fund assumes the pivotal role of fostering productive dialogue and fostering collaboration among ISSA members in the region, currently representing 11 countries. Among its core responsibilities are the organization of technical seminars centred around regional priorities, the hosting of workshops within.

Now, why is this important? A country’s biggest asset is its people. And a country with a young population is in a position of privilege. How best does a country leverage its Human Capital?

a) First, you educate, train, and keep re-skilling them.
b) Secondly, you use their labour (physical and intellectual), financial capital, and enterprise to grow the economy.

When the economy grows, more people benefit. But a country with a large and young population needs to plan for a time when the majority of these youth become old and are unable to work. With 10% social security coverage, if we fail to plan for these youth, we are actually planning to fail them in their old age. So, we need to be deliberate to ensure we do not postpone a problem for a Government that is in power in 2063 – 40 years from now.

I have so far talked about the “What we need to change”. I have also talked about “why we need to change”. Now, let me focus on the “how we need to change” – which is the focus of this conference.

In all the previous stakeholder engagements that we have had – the Uganda National Roads Authority (UNRA) conference, and the 4 Labour Inspector conferences in Central, North, East, and Western Uganda – I kept emphasizing the “Whole-of-Government” approach. Why should we divide our efforts to achieve the same goals? This is simply inefficient, wasteful, and even confusing to the public. We now have a deliberate policy to collaborate with each other across the different arms of Government to implement the National Development Plan.

When it comes to the issue of compliance, our strategy is simple:
• Take advantage of existing Government structures at the levels of Ministries, Departments, and Agencies to:
a. Bring large numbers of employers into our sight
b. Compare this data against databases of URA & NSSF
c. Determine who is not complying with the law (to pay tax and make NSSF contributions)
d. Give them a chance to “mend” their ways
e. For those who are determined to break the law, bring the arms of enforcement to bear

So, we started first with the roads sector, where through the regulator, UNRA, we were able to identify about 9,000 contractors in the sector. But only 48% were compliant. We now know that in Energy, Oil & Gas and Minerals, the number of employers is even bigger - AND THE COMPLIANCE RATE IS PROBABLY WORSE.

Hon.

: By now, everyone knows that we are here to bring fundamental change to social security in Uganda. We are serious about this mission as you have seen over the last 2 months. But change is difficult. So, when I shared my policy intentions way back in July 2022 – not many people appreciated the message immediately. But we know patience is important when driving a transformation agenda. Equally, it is important to keep communicating the picture of success, in order to get stakeholders behind you.

So, I should start by echoing again what the picture of success looks like. First of all, where are we today?

1. Uganda has a population of about 45 million people
2. It is the youngest population in the world - 70% below the age of 30 years
3. The workforce is about 16 million people
4. 90% are in the informal (non-money economy)
5. But only 10% are formally covered with social security – mostly in the formal sector

What do we want to change?

1. First, let’s make sure that those who are supposed to be making contributions to social security are actually doing it – compliance with the NSSF Act
• Even before the NSSF Act was introduced, compliance was only 52%,
- This was when only employers with more than 5 employees were mandated to contribute
• Now that the law covers ALL employers – you can imagine compliance has significantly dropped – because our businesses look at this as a cost – rather than an investment in the future of their employees.
2. So, we aim to ensure that every employer that is mandated to make social security contributions, is complying – 100%. This is a civic duty.
3. Secondly, we know that 90% of our workers are in the informal economy. They are mostly transacting in cash, earn little income, and lack long-term job security.
4. Why can’t we support these workers to join the formal economy? How can we drive coverage from 10% today to 50% by involving the informal economy?

We avoid facing these gloomy predictions, because it is our nature to keep seeking hope and optimism. Unfortunately, this will not change the fate of many young people in Uganda – unless – the discipline of long-term saving is inculcated in the fabric of our society.

Now, let us paint Kababiito’s story with a more positive spin. Imagine that this year, through the Petroleum Authority of Uganda, NSSF notices that the hotel where Kababiito is working has not registered her. NSSF then registers her for NSSF contributions. From a salary of 800,000, 15% deduction per month works out to just UGX 120,000 per month. Now let us do some simple mathematics. If she saves this money for 20 years, she will have a neat UGX 28,800,000 when she retires at the age of 60 years. Not bad!!!

Now, suppose NSSF invests this money at an average rate of 10% per annum.
This young lady will have UGX 31.2 Million by the age of 60. This is the power of compounding. Each year that interest is added to her account, the subsequent interest is computed based on the new balance. This happens every year for 20 years. It is not gambling like the betting of the games between Arsenal and Man Utd. And yet, what many young people are doing today is akin to gambling with their lives.

And in the process of saving with NSSF, you are contributing to the development of Uganda because this money is being invested in Government bonds, shareholding in companies that create jobs, infrastructure projects, and real estate.

We have a choice to make today and going forward. We can make a conscious choice to be part of the problem – and ignore our personal and national obligation to save for our retirement; or, we can do what seems harder today, but what will no doubt make life easier tomorrow – make our contributions to NSSF as the law compels us to. Because, as I have ably demonstrated, “Prosperity is the fruit of labour”, but this only manifests itself through savings and investments.
These kinds of partnerships are therefore going to secure the future of millions of Ugandans – we support them wholeheartedly as the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development.

Hon. Amos Lugolobi: We are working tirelessly to get people out of poverty through job creation. But how strange would it be to work so hard, only for the beneficiaries to fall back into poverty when they reach the age of 60 years and can’t work anymore. This is the lesson we should pick up from China. Let us not solve a big problem, only to create a new one. The Oil sector will create thousands of jobs over the next decade. Be deliberate not to be part of an existing problem, and instead be integral to a future solution for social and income security.

Uganda has the youngest population in the world today – 78% below the age of 30 years. Government, through the National Development Plan, is focusing its strategic efforts on job creation and raising household incomes. The responsibility to set aside income for retirement should equally be prioritized.

The partnership between NSSF, and the Ministry of Gender Labour and Social Development (MGLSD) to expand coverage and increase compliance of social security is indeed welcome. It is our duty to educate our workers about the obligations to save for the future. The life expectancy rate of Uganda today is 63 years of age. Today, more people are migrating from the village to towns at a rate of about 6% per annum. The percentage living in towns is 26%, from 6% in 1986. As more young people move to the towns, they will likely get jobs in the services sector. The game changes completely once you become a town dweller. This could be in Hoima – the epi-centre of our oil industry.

Let us imagine a young fictitious lady called Kababiito working as a hotel manager there. Her salary could be UGX 800,000 per month. This is a decent income in Uganda, but still not a lot of money. Now, let us imagine that she is 40 years of age today, and this hotel is not registered for NSSF. If she stays in this job for the next 20 years, she will retire in 2042 at the age of 60 years.

If she is a single mother with children– as is quite common these days – the larger proportion of her income will go to rent, food, and school fees. Without the benefit of NSSF savings, she is likely to enter old age without a reliable source of future income. This is our harsh reality.

Hon. Amos Lugolobi, State Minister for Finance and Planning: This is the second event that I am attending to mark the evolving partnership between the Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development and NSSF. I am a vested partner in this partnership because my colleague, Hon. Betty Amongi, is responsible for driving policy on social security. But her role is incomplete if these savings are not invested prudently – that is where the Ministry of Finance, Planning and Economic Development intervenes. So, I would like to spend a bit of time on the essence of this relationship to NSSF members and why all workers – must be encouraged, or perhaps obligated to have a basic retirement account.

Since 1978, China has lifted almost 1 billion people from the grips of poverty. Oil is going to lift a good number of Ugandans from poverty too.

Why is this important and what lessons can we learn from China?

China’s Ministry of Finance undertook a special study in 2020 entitled “Four Decades of Poverty Reduction in China: Drivers, Insights for the World, and the Way Ahead”. The focus of the study is on the key drivers of what made China a very successful case study on poverty alleviation.

China’s model was based on two key pillars;

Pillar One: Broad-based economic transformation to open new economic opportunities and raise average incomes. Uganda is following a similar strategy where our objectives are to get more people into the “money economy”.

Pillar Two: Recognition that targeted support from Government is needed to alleviate persistent poverty; support was initially provided to areas disadvantaged by geography and the lack of opportunities and later to individual households. We are also replicating this approach in the name of the Parish Development Model (PDM).

There are important lessons from China that I encourage all of us to digest. Let me first focus on the specific subject of “social protection”.

In China, until the middle of the 2000s, the provision of basic social security was the responsibility of the communes – let us look at these as parishes. However, as China’s society became more sophisticated, the communes slowly abdicated the responsibility as guarantors of basic social security. By the mid-2000s, old-age poverty emerged as a new policy concern given the rapid aging of China’s rural population, and subsidized universal pension schemes were started as pilots and then expanded nationwide. China is still grappling with this problem today.

Patrick Ayota: People may have the willingness to save, but they don't have the capacity to save, so you're going to see us very involved in supporting local enterprises to grow.

We ran an interesting program in 2019 that we piloted with agriculture and from the hypothesis, we learnt that if you intervene in a farmer's life and he makes more money, he will save with a farm.

One of the things we are doing now as we begin to look at creating jobs is the Hi-Innovator programme where we are supporting startups and the good thing this one is attracting money from other partners who come so far. Within two years we've actually funded 267 startups. We aim to do 500 by the end of 2025, most likely 2000 by the end of 2030. Out of that, we know startups will fail, in fact, the appetite will be 90% of them fail. But if 550 survive, it's a good start.

Patrick Ayota: We have an obligation to look at Uganda today and begin investing for Uganda tomorrow and nobody can do it but us. Our long-term savings are at 11%, 10% of that is with NSSF and those are low. As a country, we have to do something.

As NSSF our job to see what can we do to turn that situation around. What can you do in your company to turn this situation of a low savings culture around?

Remember, this is not just about your life. Many of you have children. They are going to be here when you are not, so you begin to think what do I need to be doing today? Where I am? Bring the change.

If we are going to accelerate the interest of Uganda to join the Club of Africa economic giants, at a minimum, we must all encourage long-term savings.

So what are we doing in NSSF? We're now moving on a couple of rounds. The first one is to increase the willingness to save, through education, awareness, and partner shifts like the one we are having here.

Patrick Ayota, Managing Director, NSSF: About 25 years ago, the average life expectancy in Uganda was 43. At that point, it was a glamour saying, no NSSF, you can't tell us to come and get our benefits when our life expectancy is 43 because it didn't make sense.

However, now we are at a life expectancy average of 63. Interestingly enough, the ladies are at 64 and the men are at 62. So for some reason, the ladies are living longer than us.

We are beginning to live longer, if you think about it, in your village, there are more 70-year-olds walking around. Some of your uncles, aunts and grandmothers are even 100, we now have more 100-year-olds than we did 20 years ago. The danger is this if you retire and claim your savings at 55 and you are going to live for another 20 years, what happens to you?

That is the problem we have as a nation. The question is how will we live in a society where we have many aging friends but no savings or Social Security? We are all responsible for changing this.

Agnes Tibayeita Isharaza: Our law requires that every month the employer deducts 5% from the employee's gross salary, tops that up with 10% and remits it to the Fund. The Fund then has an obligation to invest this mandatory contribution.

One of the mandates of the Fund, tasked to the board is to ensure that we preserve and grow members' savings. When we get the 15%, we invest and grow it so that the member gets a better return when they become eligible to claim their benefits. Right now we invest in 3 asset classes; Fixed Income, Equities and Real Estate.

Under equities, we invest in listed companies principally and from those, we earn dividends depending on how the companies are performing. If you see the listed companies doing well as a member, you get excited when they're not doing well, then you know there's a dump on your return. We can also invest in private equity but private equity comes with a lot of challenges, mainly around governance.

The Fund also invests in Fixed Income, government securities which is our largest and safest and most profitable asset class.

The third category is real estate where we earn income through rental income or purchase of some of our projects like Solana that you see being advertised.

Agnes Tibayeita Isharaza, Company Secretary and Head of Legal Affairs, NSSF Uganda: This workshop is for you, stakeholders and participants in the energy sector to appreciate how you fit into this Social Security story, and how you the employer and your employees relate with us in this whole process of compliance.

It is expected by government that member organisations have social security arrangements in place for their citizens. It is the obligation of the state to ensure that its citizens are able to spend for themselves in as far as the basic requirements to live and survive are concerned.