By Maimuma Sey-Jawo
The Social Security and Housing Finance Corporation (SSHFC) Thursday held a Board and Stakeholders meeting to promote open communication and member participation in decision making of the Corporation.
The session brought together members of different institutions such as the National Provident Fund (NPF) and the Federated Pension Scheme (FPS) in direct contact with their elected Board representatives Ms Memunatu Junisa Camara and Mr Abubakar Darbo respectively.
The one-day session organised by SSHFC witnessed the formation of executive committees for both institutions – NPF and FPS. The committees would now have regular meetings with their SSHFC Board representatives and in turn convey their interest or recommendation to the SSHFC Board
Ms. Camara stated that the issue within SSHFC said forming these executive committees is first of its kind, thus, it’s very challenging to take up such initiative to become something better in the society.
According to her, the committee will be working collectively, as they will take the opportunity to ask questions; give due attention to the committee and give a move to come up with a strategy to make sure “we achieve a common goal that will be beneficial to all.’
Based on this she informed the NPF representative that “this was the reason why they decided to form an executive group in order to make communication easy between the Board and members.”
For his part, Mr Abubakar Darbo: explained that “As FPS members, we thought there wasn’t much transparency in term of flow of information. Also thought there was no participating in the events as far as the Board is concerned.
According to him, they are now working in a strategic way to ensure communication can flow from their member organizations to their executive, representatives and to the Board.
“So, we think that is very fundamental in our position and this has been the first in the existence of SSHCF for this kind of idea to be held. That’s why the meeting was in existence to make sure we have an establish executive that will be meeting regularly on behalf of all the members – who will be channelling views all the members through the representatives and the representatives will use that to contribute to the Board,’’ he noted.
Since his inception at the board he said they were able to validate a strategic plan for SSHFC which was never in existence, saying they were also able to approved SSHFC information management system, which is a new IMS mechanism to harmonize all the work of the SSHFC.