It is clear that the absence of a public sector pension policy continues to have a negative impact on reforms in the civil service, particularly where staff beyond the retirement age continue to occupy their positions but do not report to work despite being paid their full wages and even when they do, are unable to satisfactorily perform their functions. This prevents young graduates from being recruited into the service, further distorting the dynamics of the labor market. It is in this regard, that the FGS has awarded a contract to a suitably qualified pension specialist to assist in developing a Public Sector Pensions Policy, schemes and related legal framework. The aim to develop this policy is two fold; to secure decent retirement benefits for civil servants as well as facilitate the creation of a financially sustainable means of paying pensioners and their survivors. This will ensure a verifiable planned exit of old age employees from civil service and eliminate the risk that the employee will outlive his/her resources.
Although the Civil Service Law No. 11 (2006) has provisions for civil servants to retire at age 65 and 60 for men and women respectively, this is not being enforced. The government is currently reviewing its Civil Service Law as the law also provides for a generous but inconsistent retirement benefit package for some category of civil servants. Information received from a recent HR audit, indicates that out of around 5000 civil servants a significant percentage of them are over 60 years old and eligible for pension benefit.
The pension policy is therefore expected to resolve the aforementioned challenges facing the FGS civil service while the assignment will be carried out in two stages. Stage 1 will focus on the development of the pension policy and its validation. Stage 2 will focus on development of the pension fund and the pension committee, and the action plan and roadmap for implementation.
The Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs (MoLSA) has mobilized and established a government supervisory committee composed of relevant line ministries to oversee this assignment. As the lead agency, it is to provide leadership and close supervision for the successful implementation of this assignment in the period between December 2018 to June 30th 2019. The independent consultant arrived to Mogadishu this month and met with the committee as to get clarity on some of the issues and shared the inception report with a draft work plan for their input before validation with the larger group of stakeholders and starting the fieldwork.