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Opinion / Columnist

NSSA pensioners are a forgotten lot

13 Apr 2023 at 18:30hrs | Views
The National Social Security Authority is almost always in the news for the wrong things whilst the poor NSSA pensioners are wallowing in abject poverty.

The establishment is riddled with scandals, suspensions, dismissals and golden handshakes with great prejudice to the major stakeholder, the pensioner who is on a static measly monthly stipend.

Salary and wage adjustments have been effected upward across all sectors of the economy save for the back bench NSSA pensioners as if they exist in a different world.

Astronomical amounts of NSSA funds are always sighted in scandalous purchases, loans and investments with no thought for the poor pensioners who are getting a paltry 50k rtgs when the 'functional' currency rate has surged to US1 equalling 2k rtgs.

There is no OK or Spar in the countryside where the majority of pensioners now reside after years of toil and religious contributions to NSSA, how do they access the preferential discount at OK?

Boarding a bus from Mapendekete Village to Bindura so one can buy from Spar, my foot! It's time NSSA pensioners have a union to represent them and probably a voice so to speak.

If it's for us we must be in it. Right now the pensioners are voiceless.

Those who purport to speak on their behalf are not pensioners but interested entities who may not have indepth knowledge of the suffering the elderly lot is going through.

The bended stature pensioners need food and medication for the age-related chronic maladies that torment the elderly.

Arthritis, diabetes, hypertension and backache just to mention a few, are common among them. Leaving no one and no place behind.

Nssa is said to be very liquid, give pensioners a living monthly payout.

Cde Mutanda Wachingama. Mash. Central.


Source - Cde Mutanda Wachingama
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