A senior government official in Nchelenge district has bemoaned the high levels of destitution among retirees.
District Administrative Officer (DAO) Elvis Nsamba says government is concerned at the high levels of destitution among the retirees after immediately upon leaving active service due to lack of planning ahead of retirement .
And Mr. Nsamba has said government is committed to empowering through the Citizens Economic Empowerment, CEEC.
Mr. Nsamba said this when he officially opened a one day FUTURE SEARCH meeting held at the Fisheries training centre in Nchelenge over the week-end.
He said government is concerned at the high destitution levels among retirees soon after leaving employment.
He said it is for this reason that government has deliberately put in place strategies like the Citizens Economic Empowerment Fund and urged members of the community to organise themselves in order to benefit from the scheme.
Mr Nsamba said government through FUTURE SEARCH has also embarked on a programme to empower citizens with entrepreneurship skills to enable them run their small scale businesses viably.
Where there is no vision people perish. You need God’s guidance in your planning. Some of the retirees get millions of Kwacha upon retirement, but the problem they do not know how to spend that money wisely. You do not start building a house using your pension.
Let us start teaching grade 1s – 12s life skills like SAVING money for future use. It appears people get money but management is poor, hence the consequential destitution.
Is this destitution indicative of why certain old grandparents can not retire from politics. Let us learn from people who have carefully planned for their future.
As #1 has pointed out already, the good LORD God is always a prayer away for guidance.
Beer and women. Some of these old chaps
Part of the problem is caused by the Government itself, they do not pay your terminal benefits immediately. The Public Service Pension Fund (PSPF) processes benefits at its leisure, what do you expect when these retirees see this money, you think they would just look at it when they would be heavy debt due to late payments. Comeon Govt be real! Shake up the PSPF as well.
#1, i tend to disagree with your last sentence. Honestly, just where can i civil servant get the money to build a house if not from a pension? It is not in dispute that the civil servants get meagre salaries. Besides, when you play a 1,2 touch, you attract shushushus’. I tell you, you will have a tough time to exonarate yourself even when the money is genuine.
#1 is very correct. There is no way you will start planning to build a house with your pension money. You should already have a hosue or 2 by the time you retire. You can build a house from personal saving. The problem is that u want to finish it in one day. Thats why u steal. So if u want to build a house in your pension money, u will be a destitute in the end COZ EVEN PROSTITUTES WOULD WANT THE SAME MONEY and by the time u realise the money is finished, u are already on the street begging.
Gvmt cannot be worried about retirees, thats a joke. My father worked for 29 years 9 months, 3 months short of his retirement. When I see my moms pay cheque for monthly benefits, it breaks my heart. The cheque is even late say, for 7 months. I have to subsidise the poor retiree, despite dad having served Zambia for all those years. So where is patriotism from the government to its people? Wait until you experience govermnent ineficiency and lies before you conclude. Planning and all is crap if your pay is a quarter of what you aught to spend on your living expenses. Stop the propaganda government does not give a f**k when you retire, how you retire, and the like.
let us be realistic, how many people are able to build a house let alone two on the salaries they are paid by government. govt has no deliberate scheme in place to empower people so that is the reason , people hope they can buy a house when they retire which again is a fallacy.
lets tackle the root cause , better wages for eveyone, which is only forseeable if our economy starts to improve, not for a very long time though. lose lose situation.
#7 Monk, you’re a joker. Don’t equate what you earn for civil servants. You ‘re a type of people who will not bring sanity in the public service.
# 8 you’re on the spot and you really have said for the poor retirees.
District Administrative Officer (DAO) Elvis Nsamba is lying when he says that the government is concerned by the high levels of destitution among the retirees.
What evidence has he given us that there is this concern among the followers of LPM in his regime? As far as I know Nsamba was simply bored by sitting idle and ventured outside to see how those that fell off the national radar are doing. This kind of behaviour was to reinforce his support for LPM to keep his job otherwise he (Nsamba) would be worse off if LPM dropped him! I find Nsamba’s action hypocritical as the whole country is awash with poverty stricken citizens while LPM and his economic hooligans are busy eating sushi in Japan
Refugees from other lands are living much better them some of our retirees. Any way the bottom line is planning. we sometimes forget that one day we will be out of these jobs to leave room for others.
while Mutati is busy signing secret agreements.
The poverty we are witnessing in Zambia is man made and can be reversed by showing the mmd Mukobeko and banning this party as it has caused immense suffering and deaths among our citizens.
What house cn one build in k40million? And when it comes after 3years.
Saving! hmmm do you really know what our civil servants get? the average of K300000 to k1.5million.Now what can you save from this amount?
The problem we have is that we don’t want to work. We want everything to come while seated. Just work hard and you will build that house before you retire. Be entreprenure not just drinking with prostitutes.
I know of a man after he retired, he chased the wife and started starying with a prostitute at the hotel until all the money finished. Can that man build a house?
#16 Monk, that case is an isolated one, and cannot ge generalised to the entire civil service. Yes its a very crucial point that people get sexited (excited) over lumpsum receipts of money, and the results could be catastrophic as you pointed out. Yet if you read beyond statistics from every civil service wing, there are remuneration problems, let alone pension benefits. That is what we are condemning. A government is supposed to be patriotic to it’s people; in turn people will to like wise. Look at grz performance concerning issues that benefit Zambians, really negative!! Energy, fuel, education, health, to list but a few. 80% or more feel the way I do; thats the real problem.
The economy improves each time a person goes into government, or becomes an MP; have you noticed!! Wait until they are fired, then the economy becomes real, and they are the first to complain. However, think of the civil servant whose economy is as stagnant as ever. The inefficiencies in government departments are as a result of ‘humans’ clogging or choking the system so as to create loopholes to facilitate informal payments. Ask yourselves how long would it take to process birth certs if one has ‘an excel database’? How many passports are processed a day, and how many days would it take to process 15 million? Yet it takes months if you apply for any of these why? Look beyond stats!!
govt does not care about retirees and if there was really a change of heart by the govt it would have ensured that they is social security in the country but unfortunately the govt inthe forefront of not protecting its own by not paying them on time their packages.
This is a good topic, that needs serious thought, it appears the bottom line should start with the way we teach our kids and handle our mindset. The role of government should be to incentify the empowerment of its citizens whilst they are in their prime i.e. 30-40 years and not wait for one to start building when they finished in their 50s. Morgages and long term empowerment should be a reality.
#20 Good thinking. The problem is that when you are at your prime age, thats when you waste money on prostitutes instead of starting to build a house. Worse still after retiring, thats when you now start testing things which u did not taste when u were working finish you bucks.
Our greedy politicians are too blame? civil servants do not get enough money after retirement, as much of the money is spent on minister’s cell phone bills and incentives. we must look at the entitlements politicians are awarded after one term of office? civil servants get a raw deal all the time….they are used to peanuts and the majority die poor.
number 18….you are absolutely right.
GRZ will never improve the salaries of civil servants. The only key is for them to learn the art of saving from whatever small amount they earn. Someone can set a percentage of say 15% per month saving. With financial discipline this is possible. Such should start when one is still young.
Strangely there are people in zed who earn more than 5million kwacha per month but cannot survive up to the end of the month. Bane you are better off learning the art of saving and all will be fine when you retire
GRZ in this respect are the biggest culprits and as is the case with most things in Zambia, unless GRZ sets an example they have no moral ground to force others to do so.
These people have worked for their money and instead of buying more stupid Pajeros let them pay retirees, it is the right thing to do.