Forty years on, the country’s social security benefit system remains amongst the few in the world that provides universal old age pension and disability benefits.

Minister for Family Affairs, Mitcy Larue, stressed on this fact during a press conference held on Tuesday to discuss on the achievements and challenges of the social security benefit system since its creation in March 1979.

Social security benefits were enacted in 1979 under the then Social Security Fund Regulations and, for the first time in the country’s history, Seychellois were afforded a number of statutory benefits.

It was a landmark policy set up on the principles of solidarity, a rights-based approach for those who cannot or can no longer fend for themselves.

For the government of the time, recognising social security as a basic right represented an investment in its people and acted as a safety net for vulnerable groups in the society.

The Agency for Social Protection (ASP) is the government body that is currently been mandated to implement, regulate and disburse these benefits.

The 11 statutory benefits granted under the Social Security Benefit Act are invalidity, funeral, retirement, dependent, sickness, orphan, semi-orphan, injury, survivor, maternity and paternity benefits.

Minister Larue noted that these benefits have taken up the largest chunk of ASP’s R1.3 billion budget for 2019.

Around R900 million, or 70% of the R1.3 billion have been apportioned to fund the benefits and within this 80% goes towards the retirement benefit for Seychellois pensioners.

“Over the years, we have improved on the different benefits and have developed programmes that come along with these benefits so as to support those people,” Minister Larue remarked.

“People need to understand that we have come a long way from 1979 to date and we need to be able to appreciate this and see how, together, we can become more responsible and focused on the future.”

She further added that the government plans to embark on a series of consultations with the public on whether “the country will be able to sustain the benefits, how are we going to do some reforms so as to be able to keep on with the policy that we have put in place, and try to find a way forward by putting in place various infrastructures and policies to ensure that people are not left behind.”

Today there are approximately 14,793 beneficiaries which mark a drastic increase from over 8,000 beneficiaries from 2011 to 2015 and 10,569 in 2016.

The hike is related to the increasing number of pensioners benefiting from the universal pension, and this is expected to keep on surging due to the increase in life expectancy.

To tackle the impending impact of an ageing population, Minister Larue stated that her ministry and relevant authorities are working on a National Ageing Policy which will also come hand in hand with its national plan of action.

“There are a lot of things that we are doing with the finance ministry in terms of projections of funds. We have a lot of discussions that will be going on about and we have external technical partners to make projections about future economic growth,” the chief executive of ASP, Marcus Simeon, stated.

The Ministry of Family Affairs and ASP are planning to organise a host of activities including an exhibition to commemorate the social security benefits’ 40th anniversary.

Forrás: www.nation.sc