Luanda: The Ministry of Public Administration, Labor and Social Security (MAPTSS) conducted from February 11 to 19, a public consultation on the draft bill on social protection, which recommended extending complementary social protection to the private sector, the incumbent minister Teresa Rodrigues Dias, said on Friday.
According to Angola Press News Agency, the consultation included institutions particularly involved in the matter, such as the Superior Council of the Public Prosecutor's Office (CSMMP), the Union of Magistrates of the Public Prosecutor's Office, and the Association of Judges of Angola (AJA). The draft bill aims to strengthen and update the national social protection system by promoting articulation between the three subsystems, clarifying financing sources, and ensuring the economic and financial sustainability of mandatory social protection.
Participants, who included representatives from various institutions, also expressed major concerns about the possibility of establishing unemployment benefits and highlighted the current state of the country's public finances. Safeguarding and guaranteeing the fundamental rights of individuals, particularly in seizure contexts, as outlined in the future Code of Execution of Debts to Social Security, was also among the concerns presented.
According to the MAPTSS minister, the presented concerns qualify and improve the proposed normative solutions and will be the subject of reflection and due consideration in cases where the material conditions and economic and financial situations allow. Teresa Dias said the draft emerges from a clear, profound, and inescapable diagnosis that, after more than 20 years, Angolan society has undergone structural economic, demographic, labor, and social transformations, demanding amendments to the prior law.
The minister added that these changes require modernizing, consolidating, and integrating the social protection system and its basic, mandatory, and complementary subsystems.
Execution of Social Security Debts
The decree approving the Code of Procedure for Payment and Execution of Social Security Debts was also open for public consultation. The minister considered this a structuring normative piece designed to give the Mandatory Social Protection System a more modern, effective, efficient, and transparent collection model.
The minister justified the proposal of this code by citing the growing rate of nonpayment of social security contributions over the past decade and its impact on the financing of social benefits, which cannot be ignored. "This situation has been exacerbated by structural factors such as normative dispersion and a lack of procedural density, as well as operational difficulties in using electronic platforms and interoperability mechanisms. All of this results in a fragmented, slow, and often ineffective collection system," she said.
She spoke of the need to develop a specific code with internal coherence, technical density, and dogmatic unity. This code would allow for the harmonization of concepts, standardization of procedures, clarification of competencies, and reinforcement of legal security in the relations between contributors and the Managing Entity of Mandatory Social Protection. "With this decree, we are initiating a new phase of contributory accountability, reinforcing control and collection mechanisms, promoting intergenerational justice, and ensuring that resources allocated to social protection are effectively made available through the means mandated by the Constitution," she said.
