The National Social Security Fund will raise an additional KES 400 billion n the next five years, tripling in value from KES 320 billion to over KES 1 trillion by 2027, President William Ruto announced Tuesday in a speech celebrating Jamhuri Day.
“The new NSSF contribution model has enhanced monthly contributions by four and a half times,” Ruto said at Uhuru Gardens. “The fund will therefore raise an additional KES 400 billion in the next five years, tripling the value from KES 320 billion to over KES 1 trillion by 2027.”
The president touted additional improvements to the retirement benefits system.
“Furthermore, our countrymen and women no longer have to wait for over three months to receive their retirement benefits,” he said. “Owing to digitization and automation, NSSF benefit processing turnaround time has improved significantly, from an average of 82 days to 10 days with further reduction in the processing period to within a day in the next one year.”
Ruto said the government is also working to expand retirement benefits coverage to the 15 million Kenyans currently working in the informal sector.
“We are undertaking the expansion of retirement benefits coverage to the 15 million Kenyans currently active in the informal sector through product innovation and bottom-up enrollment strategies at the grassroots level,” he stated.
The speech highlighted economic progress and democratic reforms over the 60 years since Kenya gained independence from British rule. Ruto assumed office in September and has focused largely on economic initiatives in his first months as president.
“Our generation must therefore take up the unfinished of actualising economic prosperity as our contribution to perfecting Kenya’s national sovereignity,” Ruto said. “We owe this to those who made huge sacrifices to bestow on us a nation of promise, and we owe it to one another: To the youth, women, children of Kenya and each one of us.”
