Pensioners fault laws for denying them access to their benefits

Jean Baptiste Ntakirutimana has not yet got any retirement benefits since he returned from exile in 2005. The 79-year-old says he has been leading a miserable life because he cannot access his pension benefits. He does not have any other source of income, he says. A resident of Save Sector in Gisagara District, Ntakirutimana fled to the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1994 during the Genocide against the Tutsi. Upon his return, he attempted to process his retirement benefits from the public pension body, Rwanda Social Security Board (RSSB), but in vain. Ntakirutimana, who used to earn a monthly salary of Rwf26, 000 by 1994, is one of the many retirees who are ‘victims’ of a 1974 pension law, which stipulated that a retiree’s right to pension benefits were subject to statutory limitations after 10 years of not filling forms to request their pension. The law was reviewed in 2015 and passed by parliament early this year. Based on the new legislation, the right to pension benefits is not subjected to statutory limitations. This prompted Ntakirutimana and other retirees to invoke the new law and claim for their benefits. Retirees, through their association, have voiced their concern, saying that such a law was undermining their right to meet basic needs such as food and healthcare. Ntakirutimana said he started work in 1961 and served in various roles as a police agent, food investigator at the former Institute of Scientific and Technological Research (IRST) as well as a laboratory technician at the University of Rwanda. “When I was still an employee, I used to earn my bread. Now, I am in the first category of Ubudehe (the social stratification category for the most economically vulnerable cit zens), yet, I would not be poor if I had access to my pension,” he lamented. The president of Rwanda Association of Retirees, Modeste Munyuzangabo, told The New Times that the retirees requested parliament to amend the provision of the law. Parliament complied. However, the new law doesn’t cater for employees who had already retired prior to its enactment. “The amended law is not retroactive, as a result, it did not help the affected retirees whom it should serve so that they get their benefits and improve their lives,” Munyuzangabo said, adding that, some retirees were in exile while others were in jail by the time they should have declare d their end of service as it was required by the previous law. In an interview with The New Times, Oswald Munyandekwe, the Director of Pension and Pre-retirement Benefits at RSSB, said that the pension body received requests from some concerned retirees. They also appealed to the Office of the Ombudsman for them to get benefits but they could not because the previous law did not allow that and the current law is not retroactive. “As an institution in charge of pension management we do not work as we please, rather, we apply the law as it is. If parliament enacts a law that has a provision allowing those who delayed to claim their benefits in the past to regain rights, then we can implement it,” Munyandekwe said. Yvonne Mujawabega, the Director of Maternity Leave Benefits and Attorney at RSSB, said that the law provides for the future and does not retroact unless there are specific previous cases to which it can apply a change. There are about 600,000 employees contributing Rwf75 billion to the public pension scheme annually, while bout Rwf20 billion is given in benefits to retirees per year, according to statistics from RSSB. There are 36,000 pensioners, and 4,000 occupational hazards beneficiaries. editorial@newtimes.co.rw

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Pensioners fault laws for denying them access to their benefits