By Ibrahim J. Conteh
The National Social Security and Insurance Trust (NASSIT) which was established in 2001 as a statutory public trust charged with the responsibility to provide retirement and other benefits to employees in Sierra Leone in the form of old age benefits, invalidity benefits and survivor on Sunday 16th January 2022, held it 19th Annual Thanksgiving Service at the King Memorial United Methodist Church, Regent Road in Freetown.
The event, which was held in honour of the exceptional work done over the years under the visionary and transformative leadership of the Director General, Mr. Mohamed Fouad Daboh with the theme ‘The Best is yet to Come’ speaks volume of a greater commitment to work and increase productivity in the years ahead that will foster proper collaboration among its valued contributors in providing quality services to them.
In his address, the Director General of NASSIT, Mohamed Fouad Daboh expressed gratitude and thanked the clergy for hosting this year’s annual thanksgiving ceremony revealing, “I am personally gratified by the privilege accorded me, as a man of different faiths to be given the opportunity to address this noble gathering on some of the challenges, achievements and successes of the Trust over the years.”
He maintained that over the course of last year they had series of engagements nationwide with the police, military, the Sierra Leone Teachers Union (SLTU) and other civil service staff aimed at rectifying emerging complaints from contributors and address challenges that cause undue delays in the processing and payment of benefits and underscored the relevance of such robust engagements with various stakeholders of the scheme, which he underscored has yielded good results. Mr. Daboh further pointed out that over the years they had issues with systems and processes regarding managing contributors’ data but assured that with the commissioning of the informational system, which thus far has been proven to be the best express system which enables prompt processing and payment of pensioners’ benefit revealing, “we have been engaging our customers nationwide with our customers’ mobile clinic, where we provide services on the spot.”
Dilating on some of the expansion work being made in taking the scheme to the door steps of it valued contributors, DG Daboh added that construction work is at it advanced stage for the completion of an ultra-modern building in the Northwest region, that plans are underway for the construction of a District office in Moyamba Town in February, which he said would be the first ever to be constructed by NASSIT to be commissioned.
He added that the construction of students’ hostels in six campuses across the country is underway and that plans are far advanced with relevant authorities for the construction of affordable houses across the country noting that on the issue of compliance, the social security court was established not to shut down establishments but rather to ensure compliance of the Act and maintained that the court has been doing a great job with some tremendous successes.
Director General Daboh ended by calling on the church to always remember then in their prayers.
The ceremony was climaxed with special offering from NASSIT Staff, wherein pledges and donation of food and non-food items while an undisclosed cash donation was presented by the Director General to the church.