Toriro’s resignation accepted, NSSA hunts for new chair

The National Social Security Authority (NSSA), Zimbabwe’s state-owned pension fund, has started looking for a chairman to replace outgoing Dr Percy Toriro who offered to resign citing his prolonged physical absence from the country, sources have said.

“His offer was accepted and the process of finding someone to replace him has already started,” said one source who declined to be named because is not allowed to talk to the press.

“The feeling is that someone has to come from outside; to come and sanitise the current fractured board which seems to be pursuing personal interests rather than saving the interests of the organisation and of the pensioners at large,” the source added.

Another source said; “to have someone within the board will not change anything, especially at a time the board seems to be so divided. There is a need for a strong character; but of course, that might be very difficult because of political influence.”

Dr Toriro, who has been out of the country since October last year was not available for comment.

NSSA, with assets of more than US$1 billion, is one of the biggest investors on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange and has at several times bailed out the Government with loans.

No official comment could be obtained by the time of publishing.

Dr Toriro will become the fifth board chair to leave the graft-ridden institution in seven years.

Similarly, the fund had five general managers during the same period. Most of them were fired for allegedly being involved in looting public funds.

From 2015, since long-time serving general manager James Matiza left NSSA, the majority of his predecessors were kicked out for being involved in corrupt deals.

NSSA executives, board members and Government ministers were also caught on the web.

An internal audit report commissioned by NSSA on the implementation of the resolution to award its doctors a monthly retention allowance of US$3 600 acknowledged that the organization had been battling a toxic environment and bad publicity “for some time now and it is about time that normalcy be restored.”-ebusonessweekly