(MENAFN- Jordan Times) Even government agencies fail to register some of their employees for social security insurance, an official at the Social Security Corporation (SSC) said on Monday.
According to SSC Media Director Musa Subeihi, hundreds of workers at several government ministries and departments are being denied their basic rights to be included in the social security umbrella.
Citing around 350 teachers working at illiteracy eradication centres that have not yet been registered by the Ministry of Education, the official added that over 170 workers at the Civil Service Consumer Corporation and dozens of muezzins affiliated with the Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs are also excluded from the social security coverage.
"There are some public sector employees who have been serving for over 10 years without being covered by SSC benefits," Subeihi said at a meeting with media representatives.
Among other agencies that failed to register some of its staff is Parliament, according to the SSC official, who pointed out that there are 300 employees waiting to be included under the social security umbrella.
Asked on the steps the SSC has taken to address the issue, he replied that the corporation has contacted several governments but to no avail, stating that ministries used to respond that there were no financial allocations for the move.
Foreign and Arab embassies also evade paying the required social security contributions for some of their Jordanian employees, Subeihi indicated, noting that the phenomenon is more common among Arab embassies as only three embassies have included all their Jordanian staff members in the service.
There are tens of Jordanian employees working for projects financed by foreign agencies who are also not subscribed to social security services as their contracts relieved their employers from registering them with the SSC and providing them with medical insurance, he remarked.
The official stressed that such moves are against the Constitution.
Subeihi, however, elaborated that private firms are the largest violators of SSC regulations, particularly small- and medium-sized enterprises.
He explained that employers resort to hiring workers informally instead of including them as part of the official payroll to evade registering these employees with the corporation.
Avoiding the registration of workers or not paying their contribution will lead to financial losses for the social security system in the future, with revenues falling short of that needed to pay benefits, according to the SSC.
Revenues of insurance services reached JD778 million in 2011, a 13 per cent increase over the JD790 million the year before, Subeihi said, noting that, however, expenses to pay benefits went up from JD429 million in 2010 to JD493 million last year, a 14.6 per cent rise.
According to SSC data, the number of active subscribers who are still working is 955,000 people, which is around 62.4 per cent of the overall number of workers in the Kingdom.
Indicating that 20 per cent of overall workers are covered by other pension systems, Subeihi said that 18 per cent of workers in the country are not covered by the social security system.
The reasons for improper social security protection, according to Tariq Hmoud, director of the SSC's monitoring and inspection department, is legislative instability and lack of coordination between agencies concerned with offering social protection and the increasing expansion of the informal labour sector.
Among other reasons are poor monitoring of organisations and business establishments, low wages and slow job growth.
Subeihi, who was briefing journalists on the media campaign the SSC plans to launch soon to reduce social security insurance evasion, gave several examples of cases of workers who either were injured or died without benefiting from pension or compensation benefits because employers refused to register them with the SSC.
Hmoud urged uninsured employees to contact the corporation to enquire about their rights and to notify SSC offices in case employers fail to subscribe them.
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