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<p class="page_heading"><strong> Message from His Excellency Mr. Le Kakanhya, Acting Minister of Labor and Social Welfare, Chairman of SSO Board of Directors</strong>
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<p>To ensure achievement of two strategic missions namely the National defense and Development, the Party and the Government of Lao PDR consistently focus on socio-economic development. The introduction of Social Security system is part of the Party and Government social policy, which aims to provide social protection to workers.</p>
<p>In many developed and developing countries, the coverage of social security is part of the rights of all workers. In Lao PDR, we are implementing two social security schemes: the public scheme under the decree 178/PM, and the enterprises scheme under the decree 207/PM, which are linked to the action plan of the Party and the Government, for achieving social policy goals to support the mission of ongoing poverty eradication and to pave the early path toward industrialization and modernization. The Social Security Organization is contributing to these goals by providing the guarantee of improved living conditions and health of the enterprises workers.</p>
<p>During four years of coverage extension of the social security scheme to enterprises within Vientiane capital, not all targeted enterprises have joined the social security scheme, but the number of insured workers is increasing, and they are entitled to the Social Security benefit package. In addition, the financing system has been strengthened, and social security funds are steadily increasing. These performances are due to the collaboration of all the stakeholders, in particular, those employers and employees who accept their legal responsibility to join the Social Security scheme, ensuring the interest of labourers to secure their employment conditions thereby raising the productivity of the enterprise. I am pleased that the standards of service delivery in SSO and within the contracted hospitals is improving more and more through the process of developing standards of hospital accreditation, training of personnel, and learning by doing. The decreasing number of complaints is a key performance indicator. SSO is doing its best to set-up a system of continuous improvement of service delivery to reach its goals of providing high quality services to its members.</p>
<p>During the past couple of years of implementing Decree 207/PM, the Board of Directors have successfully reached their goals in terms of setting-up the system of service delivery, management system, legal framework including regulations, rules and procedures. However some weaknesses still exist from which we can draw lessons for the future extension of SSO to targeted provinces. SSO is also seeking the most appropriate enforcement measures to increase the rate of compliance, to improve the Social Security policy, and further develop the standards of service within SSO and the contracted hospitals to meet the expectations of SSO members. I do believe these matters require our combined efforts to be deployed in order to reach the objectives and the goals of Social Security system development.</p>
<p>On behalf of Chairman of the SSO Board of Directors, I would seize this opportunity to urge all employers and employees who are not yet SSO members, to not hesitate to join the Social Security Scheme, in order to meet their obligations as lawful citizens of Lao PDR and ensure the rights of worker's to be covered by the SSO fund. The successful implementation of Decree 207/PM contributes to achieving our national mission that is striving for the economic growth and social progress for our nation.</p>
<p> Thank you.</p>
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