National Social Security Fund (NSSF) has made the first pay-out of the mid-term benefits to claimants with the total amount paid out totaling to shs78.8 billion in a period of nine days.
Richard Byarugaba, the NSSF Managing Director, told journalists that between March 7 and 22, 2022, they have got 14690 claims from beneficiaries .
“Of these, 5993 came via online including our website and using the USSD code whereas 8687 did it physically. We have so far paid out shs78.8 billion which is shs28.8 billion above the shs50 billion we had promised to pay out per week,”Byarugaba said.
Byarugaba was quick to note that the development means NSSF is committed to avail liquidity to pay all midterm benefit obligations within the stipulated period.
“So far, we have paid above our weekly target by over shs28.8 billion. This implies we have paid 30% of the total members who have applied for midterm within the first one week since we commenced payments,” he said.
He said this was in addition to the shs3.29 billion that the fund had paid to 304 claimants as a test run following the launch of the exercise.
Figures from NSSF indicate that so far, a total of 14,690 applications amounting to shs305 billion have been received by the Fund since it started and 4417 members have been paid out to a tune of shs78.8 billion.
Data also shows that 3606 beneficiaries representing 82% of those who have so far received their money, have got less than shs10 million each as their midterm cash.
In total, the 3606 beneficiaries who have got less than sh10 million each have shared a total of shs16.9 billion
The data also indicates that 328 individuals got between shs10million and shs50 million and these shared out shs8.9 billion whereas 303 people received between shs50 million and 100 million as their midterm cash and shared out shs21.3billion.
In the last group, 108 people representing 4% of the total number of people so far paid out their midterm cash received over shs100 million and they shared out shs31.6 billion.
The NSSF Managing Director indicated that of those paid out 65% were males but was quick to note that females had big balances than their male counterparts.
Rejected
Byarugaba said that at the beginning, there were so many cases of employees rejected and could not qualify for midterm access to their funds but noted later, a number of them were able to access their money.
He explained that on some occasions, the employees had opened more than one account and when the data was merged, it was found out that they qualified for midterm access of their cash.
“Many of them opened new accounts after getting a new employer and when they came to claim for their cash, the system didn’t indicate this. However, when we merged both accounts, they qualified and received their cash,”Byarugaba said.
He said to ensure smooth running of the exercise, at least 80 employees of NSSF were trained on how to enter information in the system to enable savers get paid.
The NSSF Managing Director however noted that some employees found themselves not eligible despite having saved for at least 10 years and are 45 years and above.
He said many of these found themselves in a situation where their employers didn’t emit savings for 120 times consecutively as is required by law, adding that the blame is on their employers.
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