Contributed by Employees Trust Fund
Employees Trust Fund (TAP) runs a mandatory savings scheme for citizens and permanent residents of the Sultanate to ensure social security during their retirement years.
Both employers and employees contribute to the fund, which helps to support daily expenses and maintain standard of living when individuals eventually retire.
EMPLOYERS’ RESPONSIBILITIES
The employer, by law, is required to register their employees for TAP and pay employees’ contributions every month.
By doing so, these contributions will be credited to the employee’s account and form part of their retirement savings.
The Employee Trust Act defines employees that must be registered as individuals who work and receive payment for the work done.
This includes employees who are daily paid, monthly paid, contracted, part-time or temporary, relief teachers, and those who are working under a probationary period.
All employers who are registered as a company under the Registry of Companies and Business Names (ROCBN) Division at the Ministry of Finance and Economy will automatically be registered to TAP.
At the same time, the employer will be registered as an e-Amanah portal user to enable them to register their employees and pay contributions online.
Employers who do not comply with registering and contributing payments for their employees to TAP are in violation of the Employee Trust Act.
Some examples of non-compliance include not registering the employees in order to avoid paying contributions and not making monthly contribution payments within the specified period .
Some employers make contribution payments without submitting details of employees such as employee information and the amount contributed for each employee.
Other examples of dodging TAP commitments include hiring employees informally, with no contract or pay slip as proof of payment of salary; or structuring their payroll systems to avoid paying for mandatory contributions by using different terms for salary such as “consolation” (saguhati) to avoid mandatory payment.
Employers also violate the Employee Trust Act if they terminate employee contracts for reporting to authorities of non-contribution payments or embezzling employees’ contributions which were deducted from their salaries and not submitting the contributions to TAP.
ENFORCEMENT OF TAP
To ensure that employers carry out their responsibilities, the TAP Enforcement Unit actively inspects business premises to ensure that correct information is provided.
Employers should keep updated-records and details of their employees, which are viewed during inspections of the business premises or offices.
Awareness campaigns of the employer’s responsibilities will often be conducted with existing and newly registered employers.
EMPLOYEE’S ROLE
Employees play an important role in ensuring they are registered to TAP by their employer.
Employees need to ensure that their employer has contributed the correct amount every month in a timely manner.
Every registered member is encouraged to subscribe to TAP’s online portal ‘e-Amanah’ to view their statements.
Alternatively, members can check their balance statements by using TAP e-Kiosk or by visiting any TAP counters.
