NSSF TO FUND 1,000 BUSINESSES

By Dramadri Federick

Arua City

The National Social Security Fund (NSSF) has announced plans to finance 1000 existing businesses across the country to improve on their survival rates.
 
This came to light during the regional engagement with employers across Northern Uganda in Arua city aimed at giving accountability to the savers and employers.
 
According to Patrick Michael Ayota the NSSF Managing Director, this initiative is to ensure that prospecting businesses live to celebrate their birthdays and contribute to the economy of the country.
 
In 2024 alone, 400 businesses where funded by NSSF and all these are said to be doing well.
Ayota says studies have proven that 90% of the businesses established in Uganda do not progress to the following year due to weak capital and poor savings culture.
 
“We want to fund 1,000 start-ups by 2030 as long as you have tried to do that business over a two years period, it has the potential for impact, in other words that business is serving a need, it has the potential to be scaled, we can grow that Business and finally it should have the potential to be sustained profitably,” he noted.
 
NSSF has set a target of enrolling 50% of the Ugandan earning population into either voluntary or mandatory savings by 2035 from the current 14% while raising the current savings 25-trillion shillings to 50-trillion within the same period.
 
Geoffrey Sajjabi, the chief commercial officer at NSSF while responding to the concerns of the employees over non remittance by employers, warns employers who deliberately fail to contribute to staff NSSF savings noting that noncompliance is a breach of law.
 
Sajjabi revealed that the law demands employers to mandatorily contribute to the savings of their staff who earn within the age brackets of 16 and 55 years without discrimination.
 
“Some people say these Employees earn very little, their salaries are only 50,000 shillings, 70,000 shillings, it does not matter what salary someone earns, for NSSF regardless of how much salary an employee earns, you’re meant to deduct 5% of their salaries and add for them 10% and remit that money to the fund”
 
In the same event, two institutions in west Nile region including Arua Dioceses Procure and West Nile Regional Civil Society Network were awarded the Employer Compliance Awards 2025 accolades among the ten best complying employers in Northern Uganda.
 
 

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