By Maimuna Sey-Jawo
Abdoulie Tambedou, the Managing Director of Social Security Housing and Finance Corporation (SSHFC) said among the challenges faced by the corporation is the impact of the Covid-19 that has led to heavy withdrawals of saving due to those losing their jobs.
He said: “the rigidity of the SSHFC Act and regulations led to big delay in members’ ability to be satisfactorily served until the regulations were amended with provisions such as reduced cooling off periods”.
SSHFC boss was speaking on Tuesday at the opening ceremony of the election to Federated Pensions Scheme (DPS), a forum held in Bakau.
The ceremony witnessed the election of a new Federated pension scheme representative at the Board of the Social Security Housing and Finance Corporation.
During the process, Dr. Seedy Drammeh of GRA, Abubakar Darboe of GRTS and Tamsir Sallah of GPA contested while GRTS Abubakar Darboe was elected as the new Federated Pension Scheme representative in the SSHFC Board for next coming three years.
Mr Tambedou also said the high level of staff numbers continues to be a burden on the corporation which they are managing through natural attrition and transfers and re-skilling in other departments within the corporation, the relatively low salary level of the corporation compared to other sister State owned enterprises (SOEs) Is also a challenge which we hope to review through a proper study and our finance can sustain same.
According to him, the election of the Federated Pension Scheme representative is a requirement of clause 5(1)(h) and 7(1) of the SSHFC Act 2015 which requires that a representative of the Employee members of the pension fund served in the government body of the corporation (together with other members) for an initial period of three years, and renewable once.
He thanked the outgoing FPS representative ( Mr Tamsir Sallah), who has been a board member since May 2018,and have served diligently over the last three years.
In his report, Mr. Tamsir Sallah, the outgoing Federated Pension Scheme representative, said during his three-year term, at least 11 board meetings were held excluding the extra-ordinary meeting held due to exigencies to consider and deliberate on issues.
He thanked the fund members for the confidence they had in him to serve as FPS representative in the Board for the past three years.
For his part the newly elected Federated Pension Scheme representative Board of SSHFC, Abubacarr Darboe returned gratitude to the Federated Pension Scheme team for trust and confidence they have in him in for electing him to the position. He therefore promised to lead them up to expectations and work hand to hand with the Board.
