Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Government proposes to hike NAPSA contributions, abolishes private pension schemes

Share

NAPSA headquatres

The PF Government has proposed to increase pension contributions to the National Pensions Scheme Authority from the current 5% to 10%.

Currently, the employer and the employee contribute 10% of their gross monthly earnings to NAPSA, a mandatory pension scheme.

According to a proposal from the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, their monthly contributions will rise to 10% employer and 10% employee.

The proposal also seeks to limit the pension schemes allowed to exist in Zambia to have just one, NAPSA.

This will see the abolishment of in-house pension schemes from both public and private sectors.

The proposals are part of government plans to reform the pension sector which government said have reached an advanced stage.

Details of these reforms were shared at a recent Tripartite Consultative Labour Council meeting in Lusaka.

The government also wants to collapse the Public Service Pensions Fund and the Local Authority Superannuation Fund and have only NAPSA existing.

But the Zambia Federation of Employers has raised concern over the proposals.

In a letter addressed to its members inviting them for a consultative meeting and seen in Lusaka, Federation Executive Director Harrington Chibanda said the Federation will come up with a position paper after the consultative meeting.

“At the last Tripartite Consultative Labour Council held in June 2nd 2019, the government informed the Tripartite Partners that among the many proposals in the reforms is the collapsing of the Public Service Pensions Fund and the Local Authority Superannuation Fund and the proposal to increase pension contributions to the National Pensions Scheme Authority from the current 5% employer and employee contributions to 10% employer and 10% employee,” the letter read in part.

The proposal will be extended to the private sector to do away with private occupational pensions schemes and only contribute to NAPSA.

“The Federation would like to undertake consultations on the said matters in preparation for a position paper before the Minister of Labour and Social Security announces the next Tripartite Consultative Meeting. Consultative Meeting to be held on Friday, 26th July 2019 at Radisson Blu from 08:30 Hours,” it read.

51 COMMENTS

  1. If this means no more collecting your pension from your private scheme if you change jobs or resign , but rather wait until you retire, then that is very shocking.

    • And Zambians can’t say no, fear to be fired. Lishamo fye, you come to earth just to experience this kind of abuse?

    • Awe kwena twa lanya polomya mwa PF
      We are already paying the too much money. Now you are talking of doubling sure?
      Diaspora is calling us all mwandini 🙁

    • All contributions going to these reckless corrupt NAPSA who deliberately overprice construction contracts even where the contractor has bid $21m yet they are awarded $25m

    • This is just further taxing the workers. Pf has failed to mobilize funds to run government other than taxing poor Zambians. Health insurance tax, educational tax, water well tax and now NAPSA tax. We all know that Pf has abused NAPSA funds

    • Does the PF govt know just how much most businesses are struggling financially because of decisions they’ve been making since they came on the scene in 2011? We’re sometimes told they were God-sent. If that’s true, where’s God’s hand in some of the decisions they’ve been making? Where was God as they were hopelessly borrowing money we are struggling to repay? They want NAPSA to take over insolvent pension funds? This NAPSA was caused to buy land @ a ridiculous price just to enrich some people and today they want it as the only pension fund?

    • I have no problem with them increasing Napsa… if only PAYE can be reduced. NAPSA is my money, but PAYE is what they abuse.

    • Ba Pee-eff nobuteko bwenu mwanya sana panunka.Ala mwachilamo unkanya!

      What n0nsense is this? NAPSA fund doesn’t work. Files for contributor go missing when their pensions are due and you want to extend this madness to private fund managers.

      This country is doomed if this what is being planned.

  2. THEY HAVE SEEN A “HOLE” KNOWN AS AKAPUNDA ELECTIONS ARE GETTING CLOSER AND CLOSER FASTER THAN THEY EXPECTED. THEY WILL DO ANYTHING EVEN SALE THEIR LITTLE SOULS

  3. Makani yabija!!!Iyi yakosako. Certain policies need stakeholders to sit round the table and come up with a resolution. There are a lot of stakeholders in Napsa who should be consulted before coming up with such ideas. I mean Napsa is run by an act of parliament,the best is to table that before parliament before making arbitrary decisions. A minister a lone should not decide the fate of the masses. There are a lot of people who have keen interest in Napsa. Decisions that are made will affect a lot of pensioners. 10 percent threshold will result in an increase in default rate. Thereafter, penalties will accumulate which will make most businesses to wind up. If in its current state,most companies have penalties which they are failing to settle. What more when contribution is increased to 10%?

  4. Makani yabija!!!Iyi yakosako. Certain policies need stakeholders to sit round the table and come up with a resolution. There are a lot of stakeholders in Napsa who should be consulted before coming up with such ideas. I mean Napsa is run by an act of parliament,the best is to table that before parliament before making arbitrary decisions. A minister a lone should not decide the fate of the masses. There are a lot of people who have keen interest in Napsa. Decisions that are made will affect a lot of pensioners. 10 percent threshold will result in an increase in default rate. Thereafter, penalties will accumulate which will make most businesses to wind up. If in its current state,most companies have penalties which they are failing to settle. What more when contribution is increased to 10%?

  5. Zambia is full of criminals. The batch of thieves. I cant believe what am seeing here. This is personal investment not government investment.

  6. Mopani has a very good pension scheme for its employees known as Regina Saturnia. Miners get this money after retirement or retrenchment without problems, if its abolished then ….

  7. They had sucked NAPSA dry and would to have direct access to the funds outside NAPSA now. Workers should be on the look out.

    • THIS IS BAD BAD NEWS AND IF ENFORCED WORKERS WILL SUFFER EVEN MORE FROM TAXES BEING IMPOSED ON THEM. THIS IS DAYLIGHT ROBBERY — THEY ARE TRYING TO REPLACE WHAT THEY HAVE STOLEN BY STEALING FROM INNOCENT WORKERS. WE MUST NOT ALLOW THIS TO GO THROUGH !

  8. The tragedy called PF appears to be heading off the cliff earlier than expected, personally I think we have underestimated the crisis we are in,because these are desperate measures…

  9. This is shocking. How does a government think in such a shallow manner?

    This is disastrous for the worker. It must be rejected outrightly.

  10. a government that is almost bankrupt is asking you to trust it with your hard earned life earnings for the future. elisa my white wife is laughing. a person should have the choice of who to give their pension savings to and where it should be invested.

  11. Deductions on payslip: 37.5%PAYE, 10%NAPSA, 1%HEALTH INSURANCE, % Human development tax, K7.5 levy and so on. Tuleya kwisa.

  12. What does PF want to do to the workers, leave them with no money in the pockets? When the promise was more money in the pockets

  13. Don’t complain, this is Dununa reverse that you were dancing to!! The ramifications of electing a visionless president are too ghastly to contemplate – see now! Your suffering has just started; there is at least 2 more PF years to go; so you can only expect worse yet to come. Thieves like Chitotela are being freed to loot more – where is justice!
    Remember another PF Chimpanzee was talking of a new Education Tax; after that it will be air taxes!

  14. Increasing pension contributions especially employer, which is an employment tax, is just tightening the noose further on the economy. Private companies will not hire and this is clearly another conduit to defraud the masses. Also increasing contributions is not even a solution to the problems of the collapsing Pension system. The main issues is reckless spending by government and weak financial controls e.g. fraud by accountants failing to remit contributions. These proposals show the ignorance and lack of understanding how pensions work and the suggestion that this will be extended to the private sector to do away with private occupational pensions schemes only contribute to NAPSA.
    In the UK they have the same system except it is called national insurance contribution. There is NIC…

  15. There is NIC Employer and NIC employees. The NIC employer contribution entitles anyone who has worked in their life time to a state pension. Employee NIC is just a stealth tax. In addition, each employer has an employer occupational pension scheme which is mandatory. Furthermore, each individual is free to set up a private pension with any financial institution of their choice.
    NAPSA should have entitled anyone who had worked in their life time in Zambia to a state pension. But NAPSA’s money was stolen and collapsed by 2001 and have never heard anyone who has benefited from their contrition’s. The biggest problem also is that no one who knows the objective of NASPSA and what benefits would be derived from the scheme by the working class.

  16. Soon many will languish on streets jobless because no company or business will want to hire with these increments.

    • Dadididade – the deductions are on the payslip or employees pay..its the employee who will suffer its not like the employer is increasing pay. NAPSA has failed to account or justify for its investment some of these projects will not even return meaning that you will suffer come retirement. I would love to see how much these Directors at NAPSA are paid and bonuses they take home.

  17. NAPSA is a cash cow for GRZ and NAPSA management who are building lavish mansions at the expense of poor retirees who perish without seeing their money! This is exploitation of man by fellow man – “kudyelana masuku pamutu!” It means Saturnia and Mukuba Pensioners and other private pension schemes will have to pay at pension age and not at expiry of employment! What happened to our free market Economy? Chiluba was right! GRZ should have no business in business! The biggest losers will be employees!

  18. How utterly stupid can this government possibly be? While other countries use both public and private pension funds to deepen their financial sector, they want NAPSA to manage everything? I can’t even begin to talk about the nonsensical hike in contributions and how this will further constrain an already struggling private sector. This is proper bottom of the barrel kind of thinking. We will not allow you to turn our country into another African failed state. Your day is coming and it’s coming quickly.

  19. Let these morons try and implement this. If they think people are disillusioned now, they ain’t seen nothing yet. Nail mu coffin.

  20. Total Madness and Nonsense, the issue of giving money to you friend/person/ or some Organisation masquerading as NAPSA is a colonial way of doing things, we work for money to invest so that our wealth could materialize when we retire . NAPSA promotes HAND TO MOUTH syndrome, if as a nation we need to develop we have to do away with this slavery. Some of this money pensioners are not even paid in many cases, mostly because of twist-turning of staff there at NAPSA, and if they get they are too old they cant even invest it or run business, the just die poor people, in short NAPSA has changed nothing the the lives of the workers, it has even strangled them more by becoming difficult to return their contributions in required time. Additionally we pay alot of tax, there is NO MORE MONEY…

  21. Please ba Lungu fon’t go this root.Pensions are very important otherwise if this bill passes be assured that you gonna lose elections.Leave the way things are.Don’t be misled by useless– chaps in govt.
    employees will be mistreated and most pipo will die when fired by companies.Please don’t go this root twapapata mukwai

  22. The problem with Napsa contributions is that your Money is kept by Napsa for too long while you are toiling at your place of work.By the time you clock 55yrs they would have use your money in building e.g Napsa Flats,houses and Malls.So this can be a gimmick to boost Napsa account so that money is used on other things.and all you see as an employee is a statement before your Napsa benefits are due.Some workers die leaving there contributions to Napsa unpaid.Let them also reduce the age to 50yrs or 45yrs because life expectantacy in Zambia is reducing every year.

  23. Napsa/govt please enforce compliance of napsa contributions and see how much you will realise from unkind employers who just deduct from employees and never remit the contributions. The burden will be on employees meaning a 5% reduction for their earnings.apply the chalo operation on companies. If a company genuinely fails to remit there can be a repayment plan that should be followed up ZRA tries.

  24. At it again.Zambia what have we done.Just at 5% companies have got arrears. What more at 10%.Be realistic.

  25. This is total madness, people go to there graves without getting the so called NAPSA funds and you want to increase the contributions? what is the benefit of getting money when you have 2 years left to live your life?Lungu should hit the road and bring in people who think and care for the masses.

  26. The problem is not NAPSA, the problem is motive behind all this nonsense, private schemes are okay as it is an extra saving, these *****s want to steal our money, this time we say no and we can’t wait for this bunch of thieves to go…. We are tired of them the whole clan of chaps in politics in their 50s and above are nothing but a disappointment to the youths who are ever let down with packets of chibuku and pocket change ????????????

Comments are closed.

Read more

Local News

Discover more from Lusaka Times-Zambia's Leading Online News Site - LusakaTimes.com

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading