NASSIT holds 2nd members’ conference

The National Social Security and Insurance Trust (NASSIT) yesterday had its second Members’ Conference at the Miatta conference hall in Freetown.
This Members’ Conference coincided with the trust’s five-year anniversary.
Before declaring the conference opened President Tejan Kabbah said it was his personal experience in the UN system that inspired him to advocate for the introduction of such a scheme in Sierra Leone.
The President said he had observed that many employees who retired as a result of old age or invalidity suffered a lot of hardship and some government workers suddenly looked destitute shortly after retirement, and that there was nothing on which to fall back.
President Kabbah pointed out that as a result of that state-of-affairs, workers were sometimes reluctant to proceed on retirement, even when such retirement was well-earned following years of dedicated service to the nation because of the fear that retirement could result in a reduction of their standard of living.
He continued that the challenges and opportunities facing NASSIT as a social Insurance institution were significantly different from those of the other corporate institutions in the country.
The head of state nonetheless advised that NASSIT should identify areas of potential impact through which they would demonstrate their corporate social responsibility within local communities throughout the country.
President Kabbah acknowledged that, “NASSIT has done extremely well in the area of anti-poverty donations during its comparatively short period of existence”.
The director general of NASSIT, Edmund Koroma in his report, revealed that the results of their operations during the last five years showed increase in membership in the formal public sector from 64,661 in 2004 to 73,780 as at end march, and announced that membership in the formal private sector increased from 37,864 in 2004 to 55,914 as at end March 2007.
Mr Koroma also announced that  contribution income increased from Le71.7 billion for the period 2002 -2004; to Le 103.4 billion for the period 2005-end March 2007.Statements were also made by the chairman, Board of Trustee, NASSIT and the Deputy Director General of Tanzania’s National Security Scheme.
The National Security Trust climaxed the conference with the award Pioneers of the trust, Special service and resilience awards.