Respich Anthony Kazimoto
First
things first, let us begin with what social security funds are all about,
immaterial of what they are since the explanation of the former will implicitly
contain the latter. Article 22 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of
1948 states that “everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social
security”. Article 9 of the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and
Cultural Rights also refers to “the right of everyone to social security,
including social insurance”. During the world
Summit for Social Development held in Copenhagen in 1995. Governments committed
themselves to “develop and implement policies to ensure that all people have
adequate economic and social protection during unemployment, ill health,
maternity, childbearing, widowhood, disability and old age”.
Social
protection is defined by the ILO as the set of public measures that a society
provides for its members to protect them against economic and social distress
caused by the absence or a substantial reduction of income from work as a
result of various contingencies (sickness, maternity, employment injury, unemployment,
invalidity, old age or death of the breadwinner), the provision of health care
and the provision of benefits for families with children. This concept of
social protection is also reflected in various ILO standards. Now that we know
where the bandwagon began its haphazard motion maybe we can stand aside and
give it a look different from the originators’ because those who gave birth to
the concept have no idea what shape the baby turned out to be at its
adolescence, a monster.
How
can one describe a typical social security fund in fair terms without adding to
or diminishing its true character? It can be compared to a cherished baby of
the state from which the biblical rod is spared as there are mechanisms for
preventing it from getting spoiled, although in real terms it actually is
already spoiled at birth. A typical SSF is a mega fund from which the state gets
free rides when in need. When national election campaigns demand a hand, its
handy. When employment figures are down, especially in cities for that is where
it matters most, some mega projects are needed in stimulating the economy, its
handy again. When the state figures it requires a morale boosting project but
international lenders get stingy with conditions, e.g. environmental impact
prerequisites, or avoiding forced relocation of people, we go local, we dip our
hands in the SSF kitty. This aura of convenience to the state immunizes our
typical SSF from state checks and balances while breeding impunity internally.
The appointments of boards of directors of course are naturally reflective of
the fact that ‘the board needs to wag when the boss whistles’ not to bark. Again
you do not simply fire a fund manager, it can backfire nastily, this is
reflected in one of Mzee Museveni’s funny “wisdom quotes” “you do not slap a
mosquito that bites you in the testicles without collateral damage”. In the old
days it took a slip of paper delivered by hand to a regional office by a young
job aspirant bearing a somehow cryptic message for him/her to start work the
next day, nowadays it takes a WhatsApp message with some relevant emoji like a
wink or the like, cool stuff.
It is
the most convenient pool for dumping those spoiled children of statesmen and
their relatives who couldn’t make it in life by their own which explains the
repugnant workplace atmosphere of these offices. These bratty individuals recruited
via nepotic merits rather than know how tend to behave in a way that does not
pretend to hide this fact. You get to know they have relationships other than
professional when in their official phone conversation, they address each other
using family affiliation terms, sister-in-law, cousin, uncle etc. and this is
not only when calling local but even long distance, indeed even more so when
calling HQ. Also, they tend to speak in vernaculars for a long time before
eventually, as an afterthought, coming back to an official language and hinting
rather than explaining the core cause of the call, usually customer complaint
or enquiry which is responded to in a dismissive tone for the obvious lack of
weight reflected by the enquirer. And then quickly back to Facebook/Instagram
etc. the de facto workplace.
A
public parastatal needs to have in place some kind of a grievance management
mechanism, that is a channel for service recipients to air their issues,
dissatisfactions and the like as well as getting them addressed, not merely
heard. But these grievance dynamics need to be monitored at different levels,
the respondent of a grievance case cannot somehow monitor his own
responsibility, someone external to him or to the system needs to do that while
also crosschecking to ascertain that the grievance did actually get addressed
to the satisfaction of the initiator. But does this happen? In reality most
grieving parties end up getting penalized for initiating their issues due to
there being an apparently deliberate mode of communication designed to end up
pitting the dog against the cat whose food the dog ate earlier but the cat told
on him to man who instead of cross checking with cat on compensation and
satisfaction sends dog to do this for him. Eventually our cat starves. Transparency
international reports that most whistle blowers on corruption and mismanagement
in Sub Saharan Africa end up getting stigmatized by the public and intimidated
by powers that be. Although grievance reporting is not the same as whistle
blowing, they do share important aspects, there are chances that it’s going to
come back and bite you. I have been a first-hand victim of this phenomenon,
recently I enquired about monetary contributions demanded by teachers in a
local school with a nasty mechanism of punishing pupils whose parents did not
contribute, also without issuing receipts. The crux of the whole matter was
whether or not the money was actually for the benefits of the kids and whether
or not the parents in question were positioned to foot the bills in regard to a
particularly hard harvest year at hand. Parents complain in informal social
gatherings for lack of appropriate grievance reporting points designed such
that the grieving parties are not sitting at the floor while the accused and
the arbitrating party are at the same high table functionally. This happened
while Nipashe, a local Swahili newspaper reported on the widespread culture of unfair
school contributions while during the same week a TV program aired a meeting
where a parent was defaced in a public meeting for inquiring on the same, the
headteacher was of course encouraged for doing his work properly. Mixed
signals. In my case, the headteacher did not take calls while also not
responding to my SMSs so I reported to the district educational officer who in
turn told the headteacher to convene a meeting with the village executive
officer and two others to straighten me up, typical.
SSFs
are first and foremost expected to address the financial needs of senior
citizens, they are mandated to do this by law but the origin of their funds is
actually the contributions deducted from the incomes of these senior citizens
during their earlier productive life tenure. These deductions are obligatory,
not optional. SSFs utilize the funds as capital for their investments accruing
interest constantly. They build prime real estate for letting, they build toll
infrastructure, they issue business loans directly and through banks while also
owning serious shares in commercial banks. In countries like Nigeria and Angola
SSFs are serious investors in the oil sector which are more or less
international endeavors. In others they are into mining creating very credible
levels of wealth through profits.
The
most disturbing face of SSFs is their almost agreed upon attitude of being very
reluctant to pay up when contributors retire. Why do they have a joint behavior
of viewing the retiree as an inconvenient visitor to their offices is not
known. The senior citizen expects, or rather rightfully expects that the
organization that has been piling up cash by deducting from his salary for so
long while also utilizing it as an investment capital is capable at this time
to promptly avail him the necessary financial cushion he expects. It should be
noted that the physical wellbeing of an individual progressively depends on
happiness and mental health as one ages. Straining these elders mentally sends
them to an early grave, sometimes one wonders is it actually desired so? maybe
they are required to die quickly so that their contributions end up being the permanent
property of the SSFs. Elders suffer mentally, socially and spiritually, sinking
into debts not knowing when they will repay, some delve into unnecessary alcoholic
binges which reinforces their already bad health status leading to various
health complications requiring expensive medical attention which is again
unattainable, it is a terrible vicious circle. The president has several times
requested these SSFs to not harass or cause them unnecessary anguish by sending
them back and forth when they are expecting to get reimbursed, a local tv
program aired by Azam media, Alasiri Lounge presented this matter very recently
too, but the problem seems to be deeper rooted than can be solved via these
approaches. Maybe a total dismantling and restaffing will do, but again is
there a new formula for forming them? Could it be more effective if the task
was delegated to the private sector, or maybe the contributions be turned into
company shares for employees to be shareholders of companies or entities they
work for, could it work? first of all does anyone other than the aggrieved
parties care?
