Social Security Board Discusses Operational Strategies with Stakeholders

The Social Security Board opened its doors today for a candid conversation with the media and key stakeholders. The CEO broke down how the board operates, shared its strategies, and tackled some of the public concerns head-on. The session zeroed in on contributions and benefits, two topics Belizeans care about most, and invited feedback to help improve services. CEO Jerome Palma led the discussion, outlining the board’s top priorities and stressing why stakeholder input is critical to shaping better policies and operations. We caught up with Palma for more on what’s next for SSB and how these plans could impact you.

 

Jerome Palma, C.E.O., Social Security Board

“I think as we move forward with the development in the scheme, we will have to engage and get feedback. We have to understand what are the challenges when we are dealing with the administration and operations. We may be looking and seeing at it from one perspective. When we discuss with stakeholders like the media, we will gain a different perspective. So it is important that we have these type of engagement. It is a part of our accountability and transparency as well as we continue to strive to make sure we pass on information.”

 

Britney Gordon

“You mentioned that there was a meeting just like this last year, around the same time. How has SSB progressed from then until now?”

 

Jerome Palma

“There’s several advancements that we’ve made. We’ve taken, for example, under consideration for the items to be presented today to include things like the investment portfolio that was highlighted the last time around, so we were quite deliberate in that way from last year to now. You’ve seen that we’ve launched several portal features and those are definitely in the public domain for people to access for them to engage with us. So we’ve launched that. We have other things that are then upcoming in terms of like our app. That’s something that people can expect within the next few months that we roll out. So from last year to now, the engagement, we’ve considered the feedback that we got, but we’ve also quite intentionally launched things in the portal, like the online sickness submission that people are now utilizing.”