The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Social Welfare and Community Development has commended the Prime Minister's Office – Labour, Employment and Industrial Relations and the National Social Security Fund for what it described as sound fund management and strategies that feed into Tanzania's National Development Vision 2050, according to Daily News.
The commendation was delivered in Dodoma by committee chairperson Hawa Mchafu, when the committee received a report on how NSSF has been serving members in the private sector.
Mchafu asked the fund to broaden and deepen public education on why social security matters, with messaging tailored to different groups across productive sectors, especially the formal sector.
Why it matters
The committee's endorsement lands at a moment when NSSF is reporting rapid growth in its membership base — a sign that more Tanzanians, including the self-employed, are being drawn into the social security system.
The numbers cited by the government are substantial. Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office responsible for Labour, Employment and Industrial Relations, Deus Sangu, told the committee that NSSF membership climbed 65 per cent, from 1,358,882 in the 2023/24 financial year to 2,243,901 in the first quarter of the 2026/27 financial year.
Membership in the social security scheme itself rose by 357 per cent over the same comparison, from 142,314 to 650,207, Sangu said.
If those figures hold, they point to a fund moving beyond its traditional base of formal-sector employees and reaching workers who have historically had little or no retirement cover. That shift is central to the government's stated ambition of inclusive social protection, and it is the kind of expansion the committee wants communicated more widely.
Penalty waiver praised as relief for employers
Beyond the fund's performance, the committee welcomed the government's decision to waive penalties on employers who fall behind on remitting their workers' contributions.
According to Daily News, the committee said the waiver would reduce the pressure on employers and improve the business environment.
The measure matters because delayed remittances have long been a friction point between employers and the fund. Easing penalties is intended to keep employers compliant rather than punitive, while still protecting workers' contributions.
Sangu framed NSSF's priorities around widening access to social security services so that all citizens can benefit, describing the push as inclusive in scope.
He said the fund is also working to improve access to healthcare services, an effort he linked to the second pillar of Development Vision 2050, which centres on human capabilities and development.
Self-employed scheme and new outreach targets
The government and NSSF are continuing public education efforts, including through an improved social security scheme designed for self-employed people, Sangu said. That scheme is intended to let self-employed workers access benefits comparable to those enjoyed by formal-sector employees.
NSSF Director General Masha Mshomba told the committee that the fund plans to grow membership by targeting specific groups, naming food vendors and small-scale traders among them.
The aim, Mshomba said, is to bring self-employed people into the social security net so their welfare and income security in old age are strengthened.
That outreach strategy reflects a practical reality: Tanzania's informal economy employs a large share of workers who have no employer to remit contributions on their behalf. Reaching vendors and traders requires different enrolment channels and different messaging than the payroll-based approach used for formal employment.
The committee's call for stronger public education and the fund's own targeting plans appear to converge on the same point — that awareness, not just scheme design, will determine whether self-employed workers sign up.
What to watch next is whether the membership growth reported for the first quarter of 2026/27 continues through the rest of the financial year, and whether the self-employed scheme translates into enrolments among the vendors and traders NSSF has identified as priority groups.
