Social Security Board Celebrates 45 Years of Service to Belize

The Social Security Board is celebrating a major milestone today as branches across the country mark forty-five years of service to Belizeans. Since its establishment in 1981, the institution has evolved from a small operation with just twenty-eight employees working out of a rented office in Belmopan, into a nationwide organization employing more than three hundred people and operating branch offices countrywide.  As part of the celebration, the SSB headquarters in Belmopan hosted an open day fair featuring interactive booths and exhibits highlighting the institution’s four main priority areas: good governance, scheme modernization, operational excellence, and fund sustainability.  Communications and Public Relations Manager Vanessa Vellos says the anniversary is an opportunity to reflect on the Board’s growth and continued commitment to serving Belizeans through innovation and expanded services.

Vanessa Vellos, Communications and PR Manager, SSB: “We have great things happening here today at the Social Security Board. Today June 1st marks 45 years since the Social Security Board became a formal legal organization in 1981. So this is our 45th anniversary. And so here at the Belmopan branch and of course across the country you can come and visit with us and you will be taken on a journey to understand where we are going for the Social Security Board for many generations to come. So when the people come today, they’ll be taken on that journey to understand the importance of good governance that would increase their trust and their confidence in the Social Security Board as we manage the scheme to ensure that the fund is or the scheme is sustainable for the long run. And that’s a very important station for you to visit when you come to the Social Security Board because you might feel that you cannot fully trust the Social Security Board, but I want to encourage you that you can because we are strategically led and transparency, accountability, integrity are values that we lead with here at the Social Security Board. The second station deals with scheme modernization and as you know we have our MY SS portal, Social Security Board at your fingertips. So at that station you learn more about how have we been modernizing here at the Social Security Board? Well, you know that today you can file your sickness benefit claim online. You can set up registrations online. You can check your contribution history and also print it online. So it’s basically what have we been doing to modernize? And if you don’t have a portal account, we encourage you to create your portal account and we facilitate that especially on this day. But every day, we do facilitate portal signups. And the third station is operational excellence. Everybody wants a good customer experience when they come to the SSB, that is our standard. And so at every single branch you will learn what are our customer experience standards that you can expect from our team across the country. And the last one is the one that is on sustainability. That one is also very important. There’s a retirement corner that when you come in you might be young, you might be old, you still have to have that conversation about retirement. So that’s where you can get all the information that you want. You can also apply or file a retirement benefit claim online as well. So you get to learn also how your contributions into the scheme, how it is managed, how it pays the benefits, what is left over, a percentage of that goes into investments and investment income plus contribution revenue is what kind of makes up the scheme. And it all goes right back to where you would begin, which would be good governance.”

Over the years, the Social Security Board has also embraced modernization initiatives aimed at improving accessibility and efficiency for contributors and beneficiaries. Among those advancements are the My SS online portal and the SSB mobile application, which now allow users to access services digitally.  Vellos explained that this year’s theme reflects the institution’s focus on ensuring long-term stability and continued service for future generations. She also noted that additional activities are planned in the coming months as part of the celebrations.

Vanessa Vellos, Communications and PR Manager, SSB: “The message that we’re trying to send with that is that we’re doing the right things today to ensure that in the long run when you need to claim your pension benefit that the scheme has the money to pay you your pension benefit. So if we’re doing the right things in the now, in the present, in the way that we lead, in the decisions that we make concerning the fund and modernizing the act, all of those things play a role so that at the end of the day, we can have a sustainable social security scheme that I can claim for pension, you can claim for pension, your children’s children can claim for their pension. So when it comes to social security you can’t just do like a one-off strategy and that’s it. You have to continually manage the fund in a fiscally responsible manner so that the scheme is around for many, many, many generations to come. So that’s really the gist of the theme, “Securing today, Sustainability Tomorrow”. Besides the branches and what they’re doing today, we do have very important flagship events coming up in the month of August. We have our scholarship program. Our target is to give out 100 scholarships this year between high school and the associate degree programs. We will have our scholarship award ceremony in the month of August. I believe it’s the first Friday in August, August 7th, if I’m not mistaken. And it’s the 25th anniversary of the scholarship program that started in 2001. And there have been over a thousand students who have benefited from this scholarship program. So we have the 25th anniversary for our scholarship program and then of course we have our SSB Connect which is like a forum where you come and we share with you what we have done in the previous year and what you can expect moving forward. So we do share highlights from our financials and the interesting things that we have achieved and where we are going. And that’s also in the month of August. And then before we round out our entire year there’s a second round of consultations coming up and that will be in the month of October. And we are anticipating that we can wrap that up by the end of November, right? And so there are going to be more proposals that we will put forward and we’ll be going across the country once again to share what these proposals are and to get feedback from the general public. So never a dull day at the Social Security Board. There is always something that we are working on and all of our departments work together towards that one goal of that dynamic, progressive and sustainable social security system.”

SSB anniversary theme for this year is, “Securing Today, Sustaining Tomorrow”.