The National Heritage Conservation Commission (NHCC) has pleaded guilty to over 70 counts of failure to remit more than K6.7 billion monthly pension contributions and arrears for its employees to the National Pension Scheme Authority (NAPSA).
NHCC Headquarters and its South-West Region office have been charged with the offence which is contrary to section 15(1) and (2) as read with section 51(1d) and (2) of the National Pension Scheme Act number 40 of 1996 of the Laws of Zambia.
The matter came up before Livingstone Magistrate Edsen Shanduba and particulars of the offence were that between June 2000 and July 2008, the accused failed to pay the said contributions to NAPSA and had no lawful justification for its action.
Meanwhile, STADEL Insurance brokers of Livingstone have been charged with 41 counts of the offence of failing to pay monthly contributions and arrears amounting to K62.9 million.
STADEL owes NAPSA the said amount for the period December 2004 to April 2008 and gave no justifiable reason for failing to pay.
And NAPSA Head of Public Prosecutions, James Sinyangwe warned of stern action against public and private organizations that defaulted on their employees’ monthly pension contributions.
He said NAPSA was concerned about the increasing number of organizations that were not committed to protecting their workers’ benefits and showed no interest in the welfare of their staff.
Mr. Sinyangwe appealed to organizations which had difficulties in paying statutory contributions to liaise with NAPSA management in their respective areas to formulate the best ways of liquidating the arrears they owe.
ZANIS/AMM/KSH/ENDS
I hope the managers resign.
This is the type of nonsense we dont need in Zambia..The people responsible should be “caged”…What will the poor pensioneers live on when they retire..but kwena mu Zambia..theres still a lot of work that needs to be done….i wonder if RB is able to handle this type of behavior…we need firm leadership ladies and gentlemen..otherwise we are doomed!!
there is no one in charge… the country has gone to the dogs, its official i am moving to malawi
Bt kwena mu zambia..is it cursed.rili.wat do pipo go to at wok..awe,ths is rubish
chengelo. take care. us we shall remain and fight for our beloved country.
Ladies and gentlemen! don’t vent your anger and frustrations on things you don’t seem to understand. The NHCC is a government wing charged with managing our heritage & conserving it. It survives (mainly) on government grant.Grants received from donors have no budget line for pensions as that is grzs’ baby not donors. Under FTJ, we could only receive 5months grant in a year. Where did you expect us to find money to pay NAPSA when Kafupi was giving Vegina (Regina)? Under LPM things started improving and for the first time we received all our yellow book monies in 2006 and 2007. Unless we are paid our under and non funded arrears shall we meet our statutory obligations. Don’t hung us hung FTJ
#6 Don’t blame FTJ in totallity. FTJ left in December 2001 and the report says the contributions were not remitted since June 2000 so the other 6 and a half years LPM was the leader.FTJ (if the report is correct) was liable for 1 and 1/2 years. Do correct math.
#7- There was a balance brought down from May 2000, NAPSA auditors started auditing from June 2000. FYI- We started having grant reductions in 1996. We still owe other statutory creditors. I blame FTJ coz he is the source of the problem. Can’t blame LPM because he corrected the problem.
No. 7 since grants are timely released and u are working under an Activity Based Budget, u have no excuse but to pay Napsa contributions as they were budgetted for; unless funds are being diverted.
NHCC, you are not being patriotic, management of funds is intirely on you the users and not the providers. Its either you resign on moral grounds all face charges for failure to remit.
Its not just NHCC, I know that ZAWA is also a big culprit in failure to remit NAPSA contributions. The truth of the matter is that these conservation based insitutions cannot finance themselves fully from their own resources. Conservation cannot realise direct profits. However prudent accounting of funds at lower levels is worrisome in both insitutions. I know that in ZAWA, this is a big problem. Park entry fees are in most cases pockected. A group of tourists will be given a receipt of US 200 while in the book it will indicate US 20. Chikumbi (NHCC) and Saiwana (ZAWA) who are heads shd work hard at sealing such well known these lopholes.
While I commend NAPSA for bringing to light those that are defaulting, infact it is better to say “STEALING”, it is also to remind NAPSA that it too, is not doing justice to many people in Zambia. The staff, especially top management, are enjoying super-class conditions of service, and yet the workers who are sweating day and night get nothing. One wonders why they are upfront in collecting these monies but when it comes to paying the workers it takes millions of years. Most of Zambains have passed on and their families are getting peanuts. It’s time Zambians also started taking NAPSA to task for failing our fallen heros (To me heros are members of my family. Where is the indexing concept?
There a lot of workers in Zambia who don’t seem to pay any attention to the issue of PENSION until they are about to retire! People should even strike if their employer is not remitting contributions to NAPSA because its your future. When one retires, they have no other income to fall on other than a pension. To avoid becoming destitute who you retire, make sure your employer is remitting to NAPSA.
Look at how many people have blogged under this story! Does this show how unconcerned people are about pensions? This is a very hot political issue in the developed world. If we are talking about issue based politics here in Zed, it is such issues that we should be talking about no just chibuku and brown envelopes which have nothing to do with the future.
You are very right #14. People should develop interest in demanding for their statement of contributions from NAPSA. I was shocked to discover some months were missing from my contributions for the years 1998, 99, 2000 to 2004 even when i was the one who used to write and deliver NAPSA cheques. I fought this untill all my contributions were credited to my account. I just hope to find my contributions from the time i have been away up dated.
NAPSA never updates employees a/cs. What they rush for to deposit cheques is i dont know, may so that they give themselves loans?
# 16, u cud b right somehow. Thats Y NHCC is being pushed so that more money for loans. Auditor General, You’ve got work at Zesco, Zamtel, NAPSA, etc. Probe top guys on the criterial used to give themselves thoz huge loans!
#16. we dont have loans in NAPSA who cheated you.
LT you are cheating look at what you have put on the flag.
# 18, a u sure? Ok then, no big deal. What i can say is that, yo work culture & atitude shud change now. How cud u allow NHCC acummulate such an amount? Where were u guyz? Why are u paid? U cud have not allowed more than 3 months contributions to stay unremitted. Now that, things are out of hand, thats wn u’r trying to drag NHCC to the courts? Aaaaa, bane, lets b serious. You better think of writting off this amount as it casts doubts on recovery! NHCC will find an answer to its affected staff. NAPSA 4get yo penalties, interests, etc. ok!
why do always like to blame ftj on yo failures?its time you should learn to respect him as well.just resign,who doesnt know that you guys are corrupt.shame on. you able to talk nonsense because of the same freedom of speech from ftj
why do you always like to blame ftj on yo failures? its time you should learn to respct him as well.Who doesnt know that you guys are thiefs and corrupt at NHCC,Shame on you , you cant give the nation a proper explanation apart from blaming ftj.was he also operating from your offices?you even be greatfull to him, because you talking nonsense today because of the same ftj freedom of speech. resign you have failed us
#18 unama! How come our friends and relatives at NAPSA got housing loans? Including ka girlfriend kanga!
Gentlemen lets be serious! Why shud u want to make NHCC a big issue? It’s true that they owe NAPSA that much just as they pleaded guilty. But is NAPSA clean in the way they are handling Penson issues? They are squeezing institutions so that they get laons just like wat #23 says. Let NAPSA not specialise in taking institutions to court but endeavor to seek a lasting solution to salvage them. NAPSA shud b proactive and through its (NAPSA) Public Relations department educate defaulting institutions than parading them in court as that wont solve anything. Let’s help our institutions. Viva Kaunda, Viva FTJ and Viva our late president Levy!