NIMEONA

SOCIAL SECURITY FUNDS IN SUB SAHARAN AFRICA AND THE PLIGHT OF SENIOR CITIZENS

2024-08-03T10:09:00.000+03:00

Respich Anthony Kazimoto

First things first, let us begin with what social security funds are all about, immaterial of what they are since the explanation of the former will implicitly contain the latter. Article 22 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 states that “everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security”. Article 9 of the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights also refers to “the right of everyone to social security, including social insurance”. During the world Summit for Social Development held in Copenhagen in 1995. Governments committed themselves to “develop and implement policies to ensure that all people have adequate economic and social protection during unemployment, ill health, maternity, childbearing, widowhood, disability and old age”.

Social protection is defined by the ILO as the set of public measures that a society provides for its members to protect them against economic and social distress caused by the absence or a substantial reduction of income from work as a result of various contingencies (sickness, maternity, employment injury, unemployment, invalidity, old age or death of the breadwinner), the provision of health care and the provision of benefits for families with children. This concept of social protection is also reflected in various ILO standards. Now that we know where the bandwagon began its haphazard motion maybe we can stand aside and give it a look different from the originators’ because those who gave birth to the concept have no idea what shape the baby turned out to be at its adolescence, a monster.

How can one describe a typical social security fund in fair terms without adding to or diminishing its true character? It can be compared to a cherished baby of the state from which the biblical rod is spared as there are mechanisms for preventing it from getting spoiled, although in real terms it actually is already spoiled at birth. A typical SSF is a mega fund from which the state gets free rides when in need. When national election campaigns demand a hand, its handy. When employment figures are down, especially in cities for that is where it matters most, some mega projects are needed in stimulating the economy, its handy again. When the state figures it requires a morale boosting project but international lenders get stingy with conditions, e.g. environmental impact prerequisites, or avoiding forced relocation of people, we go local, we dip our hands in the SSF kitty. This aura of convenience to the state immunizes our typical SSF from state checks and balances while breeding impunity internally. The appointments of boards of directors of course are naturally reflective of the fact that ‘the board needs to wag when the boss whistles’ not to bark. Again you do not simply fire a fund manager, it can backfire nastily, this is reflected in one of Mzee Museveni’s funny “wisdom quotes” “you do not slap a mosquito that bites you in the testicles without collateral damage”. In the old days it took a slip of paper delivered by hand to a regional office by a young job aspirant bearing a somehow cryptic message for him/her to start work the next day, nowadays it takes a WhatsApp message with some relevant emoji like a wink or the like, cool stuff.

It is the most convenient pool for dumping those spoiled children of statesmen and their relatives who couldn’t make it in life by their own which explains the repugnant workplace atmosphere of these offices. These bratty individuals recruited via nepotic merits rather than know how tend to behave in a way that does not pretend to hide this fact. You get to know they have relationships other than professional when in their official phone conversation, they address each other using family affiliation terms, sister-in-law, cousin, uncle etc. and this is not only when calling local but even long distance, indeed even more so when calling HQ. Also, they tend to speak in vernaculars for a long time before eventually, as an afterthought, coming back to an official language and hinting rather than explaining the core cause of the call, usually customer complaint or enquiry which is responded to in a dismissive tone for the obvious lack of weight reflected by the enquirer. And then quickly back to Facebook/Instagram etc. the de facto workplace.

A public parastatal needs to have in place some kind of a grievance management mechanism, that is a channel for service recipients to air their issues, dissatisfactions and the like as well as getting them addressed, not merely heard. But these grievance dynamics need to be monitored at different levels, the respondent of a grievance case cannot somehow monitor his own responsibility, someone external to him or to the system needs to do that while also crosschecking to ascertain that the grievance did actually get addressed to the satisfaction of the initiator. But does this happen? In reality most grieving parties end up getting penalized for initiating their issues due to there being an apparently deliberate mode of communication designed to end up pitting the dog against the cat whose food the dog ate earlier but the cat told on him to man who instead of cross checking with cat on compensation and satisfaction sends dog to do this for him. Eventually our cat starves. Transparency international reports that most whistle blowers on corruption and mismanagement in Sub Saharan Africa end up getting stigmatized by the public and intimidated by powers that be. Although grievance reporting is not the same as whistle blowing, they do share important aspects, there are chances that it’s going to come back and bite you. I have been a first-hand victim of this phenomenon, recently I enquired about monetary contributions demanded by teachers in a local school with a nasty mechanism of punishing pupils whose parents did not contribute, also without issuing receipts. The crux of the whole matter was whether or not the money was actually for the benefits of the kids and whether or not the parents in question were positioned to foot the bills in regard to a particularly hard harvest year at hand. Parents complain in informal social gatherings for lack of appropriate grievance reporting points designed such that the grieving parties are not sitting at the floor while the accused and the arbitrating party are at the same high table functionally. This happened while Nipashe, a local Swahili newspaper reported on the widespread culture of unfair school contributions while during the same week a TV program aired a meeting where a parent was defaced in a public meeting for inquiring on the same, the headteacher was of course encouraged for doing his work properly. Mixed signals. In my case, the headteacher did not take calls while also not responding to my SMSs so I reported to the district educational officer who in turn told the headteacher to convene a meeting with the village executive officer and two others to straighten me up, typical.

SSFs are first and foremost expected to address the financial needs of senior citizens, they are mandated to do this by law but the origin of their funds is actually the contributions deducted from the incomes of these senior citizens during their earlier productive life tenure. These deductions are obligatory, not optional. SSFs utilize the funds as capital for their investments accruing interest constantly. They build prime real estate for letting, they build toll infrastructure, they issue business loans directly and through banks while also owning serious shares in commercial banks. In countries like Nigeria and Angola SSFs are serious investors in the oil sector which are more or less international endeavors. In others they are into mining creating very credible levels of wealth through profits.

The most disturbing face of SSFs is their almost agreed upon attitude of being very reluctant to pay up when contributors retire. Why do they have a joint behavior of viewing the retiree as an inconvenient visitor to their offices is not known. The senior citizen expects, or rather rightfully expects that the organization that has been piling up cash by deducting from his salary for so long while also utilizing it as an investment capital is capable at this time to promptly avail him the necessary financial cushion he expects. It should be noted that the physical wellbeing of an individual progressively depends on happiness and mental health as one ages. Straining these elders mentally sends them to an early grave, sometimes one wonders is it actually desired so? maybe they are required to die quickly so that their contributions end up being the permanent property of the SSFs. Elders suffer mentally, socially and spiritually, sinking into debts not knowing when they will repay, some delve into unnecessary alcoholic binges which reinforces their already bad health status leading to various health complications requiring expensive medical attention which is again unattainable, it is a terrible vicious circle. The president has several times requested these SSFs to not harass or cause them unnecessary anguish by sending them back and forth when they are expecting to get reimbursed, a local tv program aired by Azam media, Alasiri Lounge presented this matter very recently too, but the problem seems to be deeper rooted than can be solved via these approaches. Maybe a total dismantling and restaffing will do, but again is there a new formula for forming them? Could it be more effective if the task was delegated to the private sector, or maybe the contributions be turned into company shares for employees to be shareholders of companies or entities they work for, could it work? first of all does anyone other than the aggrieved parties care?

The problem with senior citizens aka retirees is that they are scattered all over the place as well as across time and status, even when they complain it is a cricket orchestra, every one shouting by themselves without a common tune or purpose or even a coherent audience. This plays nicely into the hands of their tomentors,so sad!

FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION REFUGEES

2024-07-30T16:30:00.001+03:00

FGM refugees

R.A.Kazimoto

Female genital mutilation, also known as ‘the cut’ is the practice of removing certain parts of the female genitalia for purposes of subduing or suppressing sexual urges in the growing girl child. It is practiced on girls of different ages from quite young to teens. Different ideas are posed to back up the practice as being legitimate, they range from religious to cultural. The religious concept seeming to mirror the circumcision of the boy child as practiced by biblical Jews reflecting spiritual cleanliness while the cultural one varies from one society to another. The net effect boils down to the fact that the female body is reduced to a baby making factory with the unavoidable implication that copulation per se is taboo.

The geographical distribution of FGM is so interesting, it is practically global, especially if the time line is extended backwards far enough. As time goes on many cultures are abandoning the practice, here in East Africa however the abandonment seems halfhearted. Some consider it necessary while others prefer to go with the trend and shun it. We therefore have victims, victims of FGM are so varied. In a typical rural setting where FGM is becoming slowly outdated, there is always the preceding generation, those who underwent the cut and consider themselves some kind of the true bearers of the traditional norms of their society. The chaga word “sambura” means the uncircumcised one, it is derogatory, it is a tool of stigma, the ladies who refer to others using such terminologies tend to also deny them certain rights or privileges. This in turn leads to peer pressure and tends to perpetuate FGM. What is an FGM refugee? if a family (or an individual) moves from an area where FGM is practiced to another where it is not practiced for the sole reason of running away from the culture, we have a legitimate FGM refugee status. But there is a worse situation, if a man realizes that his lady is sexually defunct due to FGM he tends to look elsewhere for the expected satisfaction, but what of his beloved woman? She can not understand what went wrong, she can only see betrayal and cheating. And what of our religious affiliations, you cannot go jumping around from one woman to another and maintain you are Christian!, Christian marriages are supposedly cast in stone so once in no way out, immaterial of FGM status of your spouse. Men in such situations tend to establish business activities that involve travelling to areas where their desires can be met without jeopardizing their marriages we therefore have another variety of FGM refugees.

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