Parliament has passed a draft law, Maternity Leave Benefits Scheme that enables mothers on maternity leave to receive their full salary for 12 weeks after birth. Every employer and employee will pay 0.3% each of the salary to Rwanda social security Board (RSSB) to insure maternity leave salaries.
The existing law states that a mother on maternity leave without insurance has to receive full salary for six weeks and get paid 20% of her salary in case she wants to add more six weeks. The draft law was confirmed yesterday and complies with the labor law passed in 2009.
Yvonne Uwayisenga, the deputy chairperson of the Chamber of Deputies’ Committee on Political Affairs and Gender said that the passed law will facilitate employers who would pay 20% of the employee since the whole salary will be covered by insurance institutions following new reforms.
“From now, a woman on maternity leave will be paid the whole salary for 12 weeks. The contribution paid for insurance is 0.6% of which the employee pays 0.3% while the employer pays the remaining 0.3%,”she said.
Uwanyirigira has however expressed worries over the six month period accorded to an employer to have declared the premium for an employee, wondering whether a mother on or due for leave woman will be affected in case the employer didn’t declare the maternity insurance premium.
Dr. Uzziel Ndagijimana, Minister of State in the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning in charge of Economic Planning said that an employer has six months to have declared contributions to the insurance institution to get back the salary paid to a mother on maternity leave.
“The mother on maternity leave has to regularly receive the salary for 12 weeks. The salary is paid by the employer who, in six months, has to submit returns indicating the amount paid to a mother on maternity leave to get refunded,” he said.
A mother is allowed to appeal in case she didn’t receive what an insurance institution owes her and is entitled to start benefiting from the insurance after one month of contributions.
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