The Minister of Employment, Labour and Social Security, Mohamed Rahman Swaray, has on Friday, 2nd February expanded his inspection and familiarization visit to companies and businesses operating in the provincial areas of Sierra Leone.
For months now, the Minister has been engaging workers and managements across Freetown and recently, the provinces.
On Friday, he and his team, comprising of the Ministry’s Permanent Secretary, directors and other senior officers of the Labour Ministry, were at Marampa Mines Limited in Lunsar and Sunbird Bioenergy, respectively.
The Director General of the National Social Security and Insurance Trust (NASSIT), Fuaad Daboh, and other NASSIT officials also accompanied the Minister to ascertain NASSIT compliance of the companies.
Marampa Mines Limited engages in the extraction and export of Iron Ore while Sunbird Bioenergy cultivates Sugarcane and produces Ethanol.
Both companies currently employ about 10,000 people, majority of whom are Sierra Leoneans.
The Minister and team held frank discussions with their workers and managements and several challenges were highlighted.
He applauded both managements for providing such huge number of jobs which is a boost to the President’s agenda to create 500,000 jobs for Sierra Leoneans within the current five years.
He also applauded them for their community development strives and expressed hope for more developmental projects in the future.
The Minister said that in the coming days, officers of the Ministry will engage managements on relevant Labour Law obligations and ensure that the challenges raised are addressed swiftly to uphold good industrial relations.
On NASSIT’s part, the DG said that he was so far impressed with the compliance level of both managements in contributing for their staff.
However, Daboh explained that the contribution does not cover only local staff but expatriate staff as well “as long as they are being paid salaries here in Sierra Leone.”
He pointed out that it is the right of every worker to be contributed for, adding that action will be taken against employers flouting the NASSIT Act. He said that his team will be on grounds to check and update records from time-to-time and also to register new employees.
