Dear Editor,
THE National Pension Scheme Authority (NAPSA) is a statutory body mandated to collect workers’ money through the employers and keep the former’s money until one reaches the retirement age. The retirement age according to the current constitution is 65 years.
The law requires that every employer should deduct money from the employees every month and remit it to NAPSA as returns.
The employee contributes five percent of his gross salary and the employer on the other hand contributes five percent of the former’s salary. If an employee is paid K1, 000 monthly salary, his or her NAPSA contribution per month is K100.
The NAPSA contribution by the employees is claimed when the employee reaches the retirement age of 65 years. However, this is a form of investment on the part of the employees in that the employee will have something to lay his or her hands on in an event that he or she stops work due to retirement.
The failure by the employers to remit the worker’s NAPSA returns attracts penalty and interest which should be borne by the employer. There have been instances where the employee upon retiring finds that his or her employer was not remitting the returns.
However, the employer’s failure to remit the employee’s returns cannot only be attributed to negligence but a slump in the volume of sales because of high competition among the market players and Covid-19, among others as the case is at the moment.
In view of this, I earnestly appeal to NAPSA to lessen the punishment meted out on the defaulting employers. This is inevitable in that the reasons for the employer’s defaulting on the employee’s NAPSA returns is justified.
Ultimately, this will provide relief to the employers whose business enterprises have been adversely affected by the coronavirus.
ELEMIYA PHIRI,
Author
