BY MTHANDAZO NYONI
ZIMBABWE’S compulsory pension fund, the National Social Security Authority (Nssa) says its rebranding exercise is bearing fruit with internal and external relations having improved significantly.
The organisation last year embarked on a rebranding exercise meant to portray a new Nssa that is driven by a culture of excellence and performance from three perspectives of efficiency, resource stewardship and responsiveness.
Over the past 26 years or so, the Nssa brand has become associated with corruption, incompetence and other vices, thus inflicting a lot of damage to the organisation’s corporate identity.
Nssa spokesperson Tendai Mutseyekwa told NewsDay during a recent insurance and pensions mentorship programme for journalists that the rebranding exercise was bearing fruit.
“The journey started last year in January and there were various interventions that were taken to address some of the internal issues that were causing problems and also to ensure that everybody understood the vision of where Nssa wanted to go,” Mutseyekwa said.
He said some of the initiatives they undertook included engagements with various stakeholders, including pensioner representatives.
“This is a first for Nssa where we have the minister (Public Service), the general manager and the entire Nssa executive going down and meeting with pensioner representatives to unpack Nssa and also to get direct feedback from them.
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“The interventions that we took were informed by this close collaboration between us and the pensioners, who constitutes some of our most important stakeholders. So as far as relations with them, they are very cordial and ongoing and it is something that is new. We continue to interact with other stakeholders — the employers and employee bodies.”
Mutseyekwa said during the years (2020 to 2021), Nssa received recognition from bodies such as the Institute of Directors Zimbabwe, Contact Centre Association of Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe Institute of Public Relations, to mention a few — something which had never happened before.
“Nssa was a bad news story before we embarked on this journey, and we are instituting various measures. At the moment, we have just introduced the Nssa self-service portal where employers can add employees and also where as an individual you are able to go into the self-service portal, log in your details and view the history and status of your contribution,” he said.
Mutseyekwa said as part of the rebranding exercise, Nssa was selling its shares in Turnall (32,55%) and 31,22% of its 66,22% stake in First Mutual Holdings Limited.
Since 2012, Nssa has violated regulations of both the stock exchange and insurance regulator, the Insurance and Pensions Commission.
The social security provider is letting go of its wholly-owned National Building Society, five years after the formation of the building society.
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