Summary
Highlights
On January 12th, President Kais Saied met with the Minister of Social Affairs, Mr. Issam Al-Ahmar, to discuss the critical situation of social security funds, particularly the National Sickness Insurance Fund (CNAM). The President issued directives emphasizing the urgent need to address these issues, provide necessary health coverage for all insured individuals, and find swift solutions. He stressed that a new vision for all social funds is required to overcome past imbalances that negatively impacted citizen services.
The current situation of social security funds (CNAM, CNSS, and CNRPS) is precarious, operating on a month-to-month basis without the international standard of three years' worth of reserve funds. This instability makes the system vulnerable to economic crises and unexpected events like the COVID-19 pandemic. The expert warns that without immediate and comprehensive reforms, the social security system could collapse, highlighting that while CNAM has a financial surplus, it lacks liquidity to pay providers, leading to delays and affecting the entire healthcare chain.
The first major structural reform proposed is the merger of CNSS and CNRPS into a single pension fund. This merger would streamline operations, reduce administrative costs, and optimize staffing. The new unified fund would focus primarily on pension payments, with secondary functions including family allowances and death benefits, which are currently managed separately.
For CNAM, reforms focus on rehabilitating the public healthcare sector, including hospitals. Improving hospital infrastructure and service quality would reduce dependence on private healthcare, thereby lowering costs for CNAM. Additionally, upgrading the existing 'Carte Labess' (healthcare card) to include more comprehensive patient data and expense tracking would improve efficiency and prevent fraud, ensuring better management of healthcare expenditures.
A new unified collection fund would be established to centralize the collection of all social contributions, eliminating the current system where CNSS and CNRPS collect separately. This fund would then distribute contributions to the respective social funds, ending inter-fund debts. Furthermore, a new Social Security Authority would be created within the Ministry of Social Affairs. This authority would coordinate between the social funds, conduct research, and serve as a foresight body to monitor key parameters like employment rates, economic growth, wages, and demographics, issuing early warnings for potential imbalances and proposing corrective measures.