My Humble Thoughts
I have learned with pleasure that President Yoweri Museveni has signed into law the NSSF (Amendment) Bill, 2021, bringing some good fruits to the efforts by some of us, having appreciated that the COVID-19 situation had threatened life, more than ever before.
My focus of interest in the NSSF (Amendment) Bill, 2021, is the provision that grants members aged 45 and above and who have saved for at least a decade, midterm access to 20% of their savings (not the best I personally wanted for Ugandans but better than nothing).
I remember when I wrote and argued very vehemently in October last year, that due t COVID-19, savers were better off receiving part of their savings t cope with the new normal, and the majority of Ugandans were in agreement. In support of our pleas, Parliament in November last year passed the National Social Security Fund (Amendment) Bill, 2021.
The NSSF Bill that was first passed by the 10th Parliament on 17 February 2021, before it was returned to the House by President Museveni, was seeking to among others allow mid-term access of up to 20 percent to members who have reached the age of 45 years and above and also sought to streamline the supervision of the Shs15 trillion NSSF Fund.
I don’t want to go into the issues of supervision now because as humble citizens, we are focusing on survival now and we shall delve into deeper more complicated matters later. But I appreciate the dual supervision of the fund with the Gender Ministry taking the lead on supervising social security which includes mobilizing and empowering communities to harness their potential while protecting the rights of vulnerable population groups and promoting issues of labor productivity and employment and the Ministry of Finance focusing on matters of finance and investments.
As a humble citizen, who is more concerned about the well-being of my fellow humble citizens, I thank the president for this new year’s gift. We shall sort the operationalization later.
_Greetings from Kigarama!_
*Alexander Kyokwijuka*, _Humble Citizen_, from Kigarama, *Ndorwa East*
