Around 8,000 members of the Fiji National Provident Fund (FNPF) now have less than F$35 in their General Account (GA) after exhausting it over COVID-19 assistance.
This was revealed by the Fund this week when it gave details of a second phase of assistance for members – to begin tomorrow (Friday June 5) with a payout of around F$1.7million ($220 each) to the 8,000 members.
“These are the members who came in during COVID 1 (COVID-19 Assistance Phase One) and have exhausted their GA balances. Why we have kept the $35? It is to cover their Special Death Benefits. So about 8,000 workers have between $0 and $35. For these 8000 members, the government will fully pay their assistance for the next five fortnights,” said FNPF Chief Financial Officer Pravinesh Singh.
Phase 2, announced by government last week, will see FNPF members unemployed due to COVID-19 dipping again into their own accounts for a total of $1,100 per member, paced out in five fortnightly payment of $220 per fortnight, with those having less than $1,100 to be topped up by government.
Category 1 of Phase 2, which comes into force today, caters for 8,000 members, according to Singh.
While the first $220 will be directly deposited into their bank accounts this Friday, they will only qualify for the next fortnight’s $220 and subsequent installments if they are able to verify, via their previous employer, that they are still unemployed.
Singh said the Fund expects total value of assistance for this first group to be at around F$8.8 million, if all 8,000 members qualify for the duration of the five fortnights.
Category 2 and 3 of Phase 2 will be activated on June 9, with total value dependent on number of applications approved.
The FNPF, a compulsory pension scheme for Fijian workers, maintains a 70/30 access rule for each member, where 70 percent of a member’s account is preserved for retirement (Preserved Account) and 30 percent is for members to access for a list of approved benefits such as housing, unemployment and education(General Account).
According to CEO Jaoji Koroi, this 70/30 rule was instituted in 2012 following a reform of the Fund and this has helped build up members’ Preserved Account from F$2.5billion in 2014 to F$4.72 billion at the end of June last year.