NSSF troubles

trueBy Patrick Agona

Nobody prefers retirement age to the prime of youth but each day that I read about the depressing goings-on at the National Social Security Fund (NSSF) I find myself wishing to attain retirement age rapidly so that I may withdraw my benefits before they are swept away in the coming implosion of the fund under the weight of poor management.

I salute Vincent Kibanja an NSSF contributor who was recently reported to have gone to court to challenge the re-appointment of Richard Byarugaba as NSSF Managing Director. It is such vigilance by the fund’s contributors that will set the listing NSSF ship right.

Unfortunately, the majority of the fund’s contributors show no interest at all in the way it is managed. Perhaps they find bliss in their docility.

I want to warn them, though, that the time will come when they will ride the lift to claim their benefits then return head first to the ground floor.

While we await the results on Kibanja’s suit, I want to point out that Byarugaba demonstrated his unsuitability by laying claim to a monthly salary of sh45m even before returning to office and assessing whether the fund can comfortably sustain such payments.

In companies that care about their clients, when losses are being made as in NSSF’s perilous Uganda Clays investment, management typically takes lower wages as a confidence building measure.

Here they only demand a hefty raise! Many shallow commentators say that this investment was not made by Byarugaba, and so he should not be blamed for it.

To them I say it is the duty of a fund manager to always review the investments held by his fund so that unsound investments are cast away before they injure the fund.

Byarugaba did not do this during his first tenure even when the mismanagement at Uganda Clays became clear during the construction of the doomed Kamonkoli factory. So he must accept responsibility for this loss.

I understand that managers should be well-remunerated but I think that the scale of remuneration should reflect the difficulty of their job and the uniqueness of the manager’s talent.

There is nothing difficult about investing NSSF money given that our economy is filled with monopolies and NSSF itself is a monopoly whose contributions are raised not by salesmanship but by legal coercion.

Even a taxi conductor given the same money at Byarugaba’s disposal would pick the same shares as him.

What genius is required to pick Stanbic shares, to buy treasury bills, and to see the value of building office blocks in the city?

If genius is not required, then why would anyone pay sh45m every month for such work? It is true that special skills are needed to invest in competitive foreign markets but Byarugaba given his background in commercial banking certainly lacks those skills.

Only people with extensive experience in investment banking can be trusted to invest our savings in foreign markets.

I therefore appeal to the NSSF board not to accept to pay this outlandish salary.

The writer is an Engineer