National Social Security and Welfare Corporation
Liberia
Africa

Harmonization of the social security and public sector schemes

Implementation year
2019

The Public Sector Pension Scheme for public and civil servants managed by the Civil Service Agency (CSA) was non-contributory and was fully funded by taxes. The government also made social security benefits payments on behalf of all civil and public servants as mandated by law to the National Social Security and Welfare Corporation (NASSCORP) of Liberia. Approximately 18,000 pensioners received monthly pension payments amounting to more than 500,000.00 United States dollars (USD).

The rapid rise in pension costs as a result of the ever-growing number of public and civil servants made it evident that the government would be unable to continue this practice. This led to the harmonization of the National Social Security and Welfare Scheme and the Public Sector Pension Scheme.

In keeping with the ISSA Guidelines on Good Governance and the principles of dynamism and transparency, the Government of Liberia and NASSCORP devised the “harmonization” and migration of the two schemes. This exercise showcased a full vetting and validation process with the intent of weeding out ghost names and reducing the pension costs of the government thus diverting monies to significant budget allocations.

Topic:
Governance and administration