By FARISHA AHMED
The Fiji National Provident Fund Board has for the final time, extended its amnesty period to waive all surcharges for defaulting employers to July 31, 2013.
The extension follows requests from employers to allow them more time to settle outstanding payments for workers’ contributions.
Fund chief executive, Aisake Taito, has urged all employers who have yet to clear their debts with the fund to take advantage of this final opportunity.
“This amnesty period will benefit not only your organisation but also your workers as well,” Mr Taito said in a statement.
Mr Taito said this is an important matter for workers in Fiji as those whose accounts are not updated have missed out on an important 5.5 per cent interest paid into their accounts on June 30.
“The 5.5 per cent credited to members’ accounts is based on their balances and if there are out-standing contributions, then they miss out on the full amount they were entitled to,” he said.
Mr Taito said they have collected $1.1 million during the amnesty period.
“We can see that employers are committed to working with FNPF to fulfill their obligations,” he said.
“It is just the matter of time for them and the fund is willing to give them another month to clear their payments.”
Penalty
The law requires the FNPF Board to penalise those employers who fail to pay their workers’ contributions on time.
As such, those employers who still fail to clear the contributions owed at the end of the amnesty period, will face the penalties.
This will be under Section 40 of the FNPF Decree 2011 which stipulates a surcharge of $100 per month that is outstanding per employee.
This is in addition to contributions that are owed.
“For instance, a company with 100 employees with unpaid contributions will be surcharged $10,000 per month until such a time the contributions are cleared,” Mr Taito said.