Of late, the Rwanda Social Security Board (RSSB) has been in the news for all the wrong reasons following the arrest of its former director-general, Angelique Kantengwa, in a scandal involving a loss of more than Rwf1.6 billion in procurement deals.

READ: Police arrest ex-RSSB boss over corruption charges

In court, Ms Kantengwa mentioned names of current and former officials who were involved in making decisions that she alleged led to the loss. The RSSB Director-General spoke to Rwanda Today’s Edmund Kagire.

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With the recent bad press, what should contributors think?

I will not comment much about the court case for obvious reasons. But I would like to give assurances to contributors that the situation is under control. It is not alarming as some people might portray it.

The boat is not sinking. RSSB is healthy and what is happening is part of the measures to control any inflow or outflow of funds that is not legitimate. The controls are being strengthened. We are also improving corporate governance. My assurance to the contributors is that their money is not in danger; it is in good hands.

What is the status of contributions?

The state of contributions is positive looking. The amount of contributions is still way higher than the payouts but this should not mean that the funds should be mismanaged. Our first and primary duty is to protect these contributions and that is what we are doing.

How do you plan to boost contributions?

We are turning around 250,000 contributors for both the pensions and medical insurance scheme. This financial year we are targeting Rwf95 billion to Rwf100 billion in contributions.

It is a small number, but, remember, for pensions we used to only target working populations, those with monthly salaries, but now we have started targeting the informal sector, which we think is going to triple the number of contributors in a few years.
We have partnered with a company called Social Security Partners. We are launching a product in two weeks targeting every working individual.

How is the RSSB balance sheet?

It is positive. We have had a surplus all these years. We do not expect a change, according to an actuarial study, at least until 2040. We are trying to increase reserves.

There are transparency concerns. You do no publish financial results or discuss investment decisions with contributors and your financial records are a secret.

We are trying to ensure that whatever we do is done in a transparent way. Maybe we haven’t shared this kind of information before but if that is the will of the people, then that is what we should do. We will be producing reports twice a year indicating the picture of the institution.

Why shouldn’t we share this kind of information? RSSB exists because of contributors; if they did not contribute, RSSB would not exist.

How big is the investment portfolio?

It is estimated at $800 million. It also includes the current project of Vision City, which is estimated to cost $400 million. Real estate constitutes 19.5 per cent of our total portfolio but we also have investments in equity, fixed term deposits, and Treasury bonds and bills.

We invest locally and internationally. We do not have restrictions to invest outside the country. However, so far only three per cent of our investment portfolio is outside Rwanda.

We are analysing more ways of investing in Treasury bonds outside Rwanda because it is safe. Our priority has been Rwanda because of the national needs. The return on investment is currently between 10 and 15 per cent.

How do the investments benefit a contributor?

The benefits trickle down to the contributor. The scheme we have in Rwanda is very generous. If you contribute, you are not the only one benefiting—your spouse and your children will all benefit. Even when a contributor dies, we take care of their children.

A contributor pays only three per cent and the employer three per cent but when you retire after 15 years we give you 30 per cent of your average salary. This wouldn’t be possible if we hadn’t invested.

There have been questions about the board investing for the rich.

This is what we want to change. We have a project that we are pushing, of low-cost housing. We want to make sure we build houses which contributors can afford at a reasonable rate and at least ensure that the board is remembering its contributors. But let us not forget that the rich and the middle class also contribute; we don’t segregate or discriminate when it comes to investment.

We tendered for the three segments — high-end, affordable middle-class and low-cost — advertising in the papers for bids for Gaculiro Vision City, Kinyinya and Batsinda. Surprisingly, the bids that we received were only for the high-end project (Gaculiro).

For the low-cost we are partnering with RDF Engineering Regiment.