NSSF probes Dutch firm

By Vision reporter

The National Social Security Fund deputy managing director, Geraldine Ssali, has ordered a probe on Bright Chicks, a firm reported by former workers over their NSSF savings.

This follows a recent petition to the social security body by over 100 former employees of the chicken farm in December last year.

In the two-page petition, the aggrieved workers had asked the body to help them recover their pension savings they alleged their former employer fleeced them of.

The petition alleges that Bright Chicks had been deducting NSSF money from its employees’ salaries, but not remitting it for over five years.

According to the Pension Funds Act, the company is supposed to deduct 5% of a worker’s salary and contribute 10% for every worker, totalling to 15% to NSSF.

Last year, many employees in the farm were laid when it announced that they were closing shop. The workers later discovered that their money had never been remitted to NSSF.

The Fund’s compliance manager, Vitus Kato, said they were still trying to get in touch with Bright Chicks. He could not give details because he said he was not mandated to speak on behalf of NSSF. The Fund’s publicist, Victor Karamagi, was not available by press time.

Bright Chicks was incorporated in August, 2007, but started operations in January 2008. Until recently, the Dutch-owned firm has been operating a large chicken farm in Nakifuma, a few miles off Mukono-Kayunga road and a high capacity chicken feeds plant of over 100 tonnes per day in Ndese, a neighbouring village.