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Around 35,000 Fiji National Provident Fund members affected by late or unpaid employer contributions will receive the full benefits owed to them, including lost investment returns.

FNPF General Manager Member Services Alipate Waqairawai assures that members will not be disadvantaged by employers who failed to make payments on time.

He states that employers seeking to benefit from the Fund’s amnesty programme must first settle outstanding contributions as well as the interest members lost while those payments remained overdue.

The amnesty allows qualifying employers to have 100 percent of their penalties waived.

“One of the conditions of this thing is when they’re recovering the employer has to pay loss of interest, that’s the loss of interest so if you don’t pay the loss of interest you don’t qualify for waive of penalties”

Waqairawai said the Fund’s primary focus was ensuring members receive their contributions and the returns they would have earned had payments been made on time.

“I mean that’s our statutory obligation by law we are required as trusties and custodians to collect every cent.”

FNPF Team Lead Compliance Rajni Devi says the amount of lost interest paid to members is calculated using a formula based on the earning power of the relevant period.

“So its dependent of the earning power of that period and what you we’re earning remember we have per hr salaries all different in the period that we we’re covering so absolutely.”

According to the Fund, about $913,000 has been recovered through recent compliance efforts, while a total of approximately $2.8 million in outstanding contributions has been collected since July 1 last year.

FNPF says it will continue to pursue unpaid employer contributions to ensure members’ retirement savings and investment returns are fully protected.