By Saio Marrah
The Director General of the National Social Security and Insurance Trust (NASSIT), Mohamed Fuaad Daboh, says workers in the informal sector, who make up 92% of the economically active population remain uncovered by any formal social protection system.
Daboh was speaking at a NASSIT-organized workshop for journalists at the Galliness Paradise Hotel in Bo on Friday 10th March 2023 that members of this sector are exposed to the risk of losing livelihoods in an event of shocks.
He said social security is a human rights issue and that the mandate of the trust has been to administer a social security scheme that provides financial security to all employees in Sierra Leone in the form of old age, invalidity and survivors' benefits based on social insurance principles.
The reason for this he said is a result of members of the informal sector not being compelled by law to join the NASSIT scheme, despite being the only effective and sustainable social protection arrangement in the country.
Another reason he said is that the trust has not been able to attract those informal and private workers to join the scheme.
Daboh said the trust has made some deliberate attempts to venture into ‘extending coverage’ to the informal sector and that studies carried out by the past management of NASSIT led the institution to focus on the need for ‘sickness benefits’ as a means of extending social protection to them.
As the trust seem to be still struggling to provide a sustainable form of social protection for the informal sector workers, he said things are now changing for the better.
He also talked about how his administration in partnership with International Labour Organization (ILO) has put plans into action to establish a workable informal workers’ scheme.
Daboh said they have also worked with other stakeholders within the country including development partners and relevant Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), citing how ‘just a few weeks ago, with the support of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Sierra Leone Labour Congress, NASSIT held a grand stakeholders’ meeting with more than 60 informal sector groupings.
‘’The unanimous response from them shows that they are willing and ready to support the process leading to the development of the new informal sector scheme for Sierra Leone’’,Daboh stated.
A PowerPoint presentation led by the NASSIT Coordinator of the Informal Sector Secretariat, Cyril Jalloh highlighted World Bank 2021 data which indicated that in the labour and economic structure, the total workforce in Sierra Leone was 2, 735, 537, of which the informal sector has 2,473, 821 representing 90.43%.
Elaborating on the effort made so far by NASSIT since 2018, he said ‘after several challenging attempts, the Director General in 2018 incorporated the design of the informal sector scheme into the Trust’s Strategic Plan and initiated actions to set up a committee and a Secretariat.’
Among other things, he said consultants were hired through the support of ILO to conduct a diagnostic study on the status of the informal sector, and identify the gaps, barriers and priority needs.
He also pointed out that the outcome of the stakeholders’ engagement with over sixty informal sector groupings was to educate them on the informal sector scheme, and increase coverage, savings and productivity in the sector.
In his keynote statement, the Minister of Labour and Social Security, Alpha Timbo said social protection provides certain benefits to enable individuals and families to acquire at least essential health care, basic shelter and housing, water and sanitation, food and basic education.
He said social protection was in their 2018 Manifesto and Medium-Term National Development Plan, saying that the country is a signatory to different International Statutes that will guarantee social protection for citizens, and ‘government is committed to upholding every Law and Agreement.’
Timbo said his ministry with support from both local and international stakeholders, reviewed all existing social protection policies, established the gaps in them and developed a bill.
‘’This Bill has gone through several crucibles and I want to state here that when enacted, it will be the Mother of all Legislations in this country because it will definitely fill all the gaps left behind by existing legislations,’’ he said.
Copyright © 2023 Politico (13/03/23)
