By Sorie Ibrahim Fofanah
The Minister of Employment, Labour and Social Security, Mohamed Rahman Swaray has said less than ten percent of journalists pay their National Social Security and Insurance Trust (NASSIT).
Minister Swaray was speaking in a weekly press conference of the Ministry of Information and Civic Education held at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Freetown on 17th October this year.
“We want this generation of media practitioners to have something upon their retirement,” the Minister stated, noting that the amended Independent Media Commission (IMC) Act makes provision for the payment of salaries and NASSIT tax of journalists.
“If I do a count, we might have five or ten percent journalists who are subscribing to NASSIT tax,” he said adding that their employers are not doing them a ‘favour’. As the Minister of Employment, Swaray said he would call the leadership of journalists to let them comply with the payment of NASSIT tax for their journalists.
Speaking about the IMC Act, Swaray maintained that they would enforce the law, emphasizing that they want journalists to pay their NASSIT tax. “We want journalists to have a work of dignity,” adding that it is “in the best interest of you.”
In his statement on the compliance to pay NASSIT tax for journalists, the Director General of NASSIT, Mohamed Fuaad Daboh said “The law is the law,” further stating noncompliance has its penalty irrespective of the sector. “The five or more hundred cases that we have prosecuted included some pressmen. They were fined, and they paid,” Daboh said.
On the registration of the workforce, the Director General said “not up to ten percent” of both the private and public sector have registered their workers with NASSIT, noting the remaining percentage of the workforce is in the informal sector. “The informal sector has the bulk of the crowd such as the okadas, bike riders, and market women carpenters to name but a few,” Daboh said.
He said they have engaged the informal sector to launch a scheme that would be ‘bigger’ than NASSIT. The Director General went on to say the said scheme would take into account the private sector.
On the relevance of the new scheme, Daboh said it would minimize the risk “of retiring from business, of retiring from okada riding and at the end you do not have anything to go with at your home,” adding it would reduce poverty.
Copyright © 2023 Politico (23/10/23)
