Martin Endjala
The Social Security Commission is considering increasing maternity benefits for women by March 2025.
The commission’s chief executive officer, Milka Mungunda announced this during the commemoration of International Social Security Day on 13 September.
“Effective 1 March 2025 we will have to reconsider increasing our contributions for our maternity benefits. We have committed as an institution to make sure that we would increase the ceiling so that women, who go on maternity leave, are going to have adequate benefits,” she said.
The commission has so far paid out maternity leave benefits of about N$212 million for the 2023/24 financial year compared to N$204 million in 2022/2023 financial year.
The number of maternity leave beneficiaries for the year 2023/24 stood at 23 218.
In terms of recipient benefits, during the financial year of 2021/22 the commission paid about N$20 million to about 3012 beneficiaries.
Mungunda said that during the 2023-24 financial year, there was an increase in the amount paid to beneficiaries of about N$24 million.
The commission also paid out about N$13 million in death benefits in the 2021/2022 financial year (FY) compared to N$10 million in the 2023/24 financial year.
“You can see there has been a decrease and this can be attributed to COVID-19 and the standard of living that has increased,” said Mungunda.
As far as retirement is concerned, she said that during the 2021/22 financial year, the commission paid out N$32 million to 3 799 beneficiaries compared to N$57.4 million paid out during the 2023/24 financial year.
“When we look at our maternity, sick leave and death benefits. We have been meeting our requirements,” she said.
The commission through its development fund has awarded a total of N$7.5 million in bursaries for 61 students from all 14 regions for the 2023/24 financial year.
The bursaries focused on areas in engineering, and social work to address social issues, medical and TVET programmes as well as sponsoring agriculture for food security.
Mungunda also stated that the commission has been awarding student loans for years.
However, the SCC has noticed a trend that students are not paying their loans.
The commission gave a combined total loan value of N$1.4 million during the 2023-24 and 2022/23 financial years.
Mainly in fields of education, computer science and oncology amongst others.
“What we have realised is that people do not want to pay back the loans. We are pursuing them to pay these loans back. We have since decided to halt the awarding loans,” she announced.
The deputy minister of labour, industrial relations and employment creation, Hafeni Ndemula said in an evolving digital world, the SSC must ensure it keeps up with the times.
He commended the commission for its continuity in ensuring that the labour force is taken care of.
“There would not be a labour force without the commission. Thanks to the commission over the years it has collected and estimated N$2 billion which has in return served the labour force greatly through retirement, death, sick leave and maternity benefits,” he noted.
Ndemula urged the commission to continue delivering on its mandates and in so doing it will help maintain the livelihood of all labour forces.
He said the ministry will continue assisting the commission while encouraging employers and employees to pay what belongs to Cesar.
The commission’s board chairperson, Markus Kampungu said that as a social protection institution, it is crucial that it place itself in a global context because it does not operate in a vacuum.
“Social Protection is a human right and is defined as a set of policies and programmes designed to reduce and prevent poverty and vulnerability throughout a person’s life cycle, and to address unemployment, social exclusion and inequality,” he said.
He said their work goes far beyond its legal mandate as it reaches out to other vulnerable populations like the elderly, disabled, unemployed, and low-income families.
As a responsible corporate citizen, he believes the SCC has a role to play in making Namibia a better place for its citizens.
“Surely, we cannot change the world for everyone, but we can indeed make the world a better place for those we come into contact with,” he said.
Kampungu called on the commission to continue striving to leave positive footprints in peoples as is expected of an institution of its stature.
“The world is not to poor to care. Namibia is not to poor to care. The SSC is not to poor to care,” he said.
