Staff of the SSHFC enjoy the following privileges in the forms of Building, Car and Personal loans. Former staff members, although no longer with the corporation, still owe outstanding loans in one or a combination of the three types of loans cited.
As at May 2018, the outstanding balances on the following loans are as follows: 1. Building D87 million at 3% interest 2. Car D20.8 million at 5% 3. Personal D6.7 million.
Former staff members have an outstanding loans totalling D10 million for one or a combination of the three types of loans, an amount has not been serviced in the last several years. The SSHFC Staff Club owes the corporation an outstanding amount of D2.9 million for organizing dances and shows like Youssou Ndour etc.
The total outstanding loans the staff owes SSHFC is D117.4 million as at May 2018.
The car loan scheme is subsidized for senior level staff, the cost of which is shared 50/50 with corporation after every 5 years. Unfortunately, this privilege was generally abused in the following fashion. Instead of accessing the facility every 5 years as intended, senior staff were accessing it every 3 years and by buying cheaper cars than they claim in their application.
For example, a staff member will take a D400,000 car loan to which the corporation adds D400,000 for an D800,000 car but the staff will instead buy a D300,000 car and pocket the D500,000 knowing full well that in about three years another loan request will be made.
On the building loan, a condition is placed on buying fire, allied perils and life insurance but they were not taking any cover. Obviously, these problems were beginning to be addressed by the new MD which was being resisted by staff.
Another privilege that was subject to abuse and which was being addressed is what is called "free deduction months". These are months when no loan deduction is made such as Christmas, Tabaski, Ramadan etc. amounting to 5 to 6 months a year.
The impact of this free deduction months is it inevitably extends the repayment period by up to 10 years which means 10 extra years of low interest accruing to the borrower and 10 years of lost interest to the corporation that is extending the privilege at subsidized interest rate.
The decibel levels are high because Director General Manjang had embarked on a reform program that would have affected the above privileges in addition to the staff restructuring - an absolute necessity - as recommended by the consultant.
We expect Mr. Manjang to resume duties soon so that he can start addressing the mounting problems of the corporation he inherited from the Jammeh administration.
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