Assets held by the National Social Security Fund have reportedly risen to a record 8.01 trillion/- by February 2024 indicating a 65.8 percent increase compared with the figures listed during the same period, three years ago.
The Tanzania Business Insight quotes the Director of Presidential Communications, at the State House Zuhura Yunus, to that effect.
Ms Yunus reveals in her recently released video clips series, that the NSSF’s assets jumped up from around 4.83 trillion/- in 2021, to over 8 trillion/- in 2024.
According to local economic observers, this could be the biggest rise in the assets of the pension fund on record.
The National Social Security Fund, abbreviated simple as NSSF, happens to be the country’s largest pension fund
Some of the investments undertaken by the National Social Security Fund include the ongoing construction project for the proposed Five-Star Hotel venture in the lakeside city of Mwanza (picture in profile).
The NSSF also owns two sky-scrappers in the Northern City of Arusha, in addition to various other similar projects in Dar-es-salaam City and elsewhere in the country.
In fact, as far as experts see, if the NSSF was a bank, it would have been the third-largest such financial institution in Tanzania as far as assets are concerned.
The CRDB Bank for instance, tops the bill with assets worth 13.2 trillion/- as of latest count.
On the other hand the NMB (formerly National Microfinance) Bank comes second with assets amounting to 12.2 trillion/- so far.
The National Social Security Fund provides pension coverage to private sector workers, including companies, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) as well as religious institutions.
Meanwhile also, the government has paid the Public Service Social Security Fund (PSSSF) a total of 2.17 trillion/- out of the 4.63 trillion/- in arrears.
The historic arrears, popularly known in Tanzania as ‘Pre-1999,’ were accrued before the year 1999.
Payment of the arrears by President Samia Suluhu Hassan’s government has therefore rescued PSPF from what was regarded as a dire financial situation.