A Research Dissertation Submitted to Mzumbe University – Dar es Salaam
Business School for the Requirements of the award of a Master Degree in
Public Administration
The importance of social security benefits comes from the ability of the benefit being
able to satisfy the needs and demand of the beneficiaries by the time they are going
to receive their benefits. Due to the demand of the people on adequate social
services, this study aimed at assessing the adequacy of benefits offered by the social
security institution in Tanzania. In doing so, this study had the following specific
objectives (a) to analyze the benefits administration in terms of coverage,
meaningfulness, equity, informed participation, compliance, administrative costs and
actuarial soundness. (b) to analyze the influence of customer satisfaction on the level
of meaningfulness of benefit offered and (c) to determine the influence of internal
competence of institution workers on the quality of service offered
Interviews, questionnaires and literature reviews have led to confirmation that social
security institutions are characterized by lots of inefficiencies. In terms of benefits
administration, there is a very low coverage, inadequate benefits which are not
indexed to get rid of the ill effects of inflation, poor involvement of members in
decision making, low levels of compliance and high administrative costs in relation
to contributions income. Furthermore, customer satisfaction cannot even be predicted
as a result of poor quality services. Consequently, one would conclude that the social
security institutions in Tanzania do not provide the benefits that have required
meaning to the members.
This study recommends that there is a need for the Social Security Institutions to
involve members in decision making; there is a need for Social Security Institutions
in Tanzania to make use of state of art technology by computerizing their operations;
There is a need to enforce the Laws, establishing the Social Security Institutions in
Tanzania so that registered employers and members will be heavily penalized if they
fail to submit contributions into schemes they are registered; and there is a need for
the Social Security Institution in Tanzania to increase their membership size by
extending their coverage into the informal sector where there is large segment of
working population.