Employment law
Social security in Mali: what decides whether your employee gets paid
Scaffolding gives way at the Faso Briques brickworks in Ségou. Amadou, a mason of four years, falls two metres and breaks his wrist. The company takes him to the clinic, pays for first aid and puts him on sick leave. Three weeks later he goes to INPS to claim his daily allowances and is told he is not registered.
Faso Briques is a fictitious company, as are the people named in this article: their names serve only as an example. The situation is not. That day Amadou does not lose a formality: he loses the benefit. And he turns back to his employer.
1. What are we actually talking about?
Social security is the set of benefits paid to a worker or their family when a risk materialises: a birth, an accident, an occupational disease, invalidity, old age, death. Those benefits are not paid by the company. They are paid by an institution.
That is what makes this area unusual. Across most of labour law, you owe something to your employee. Here you do not owe the benefit: you determine the employee's entitlement to receive it. If you have not declared them, the institution does not know they exist, and it pays nothing.
INPS pays the benefit. You decide whether the employee is entitled to it.
For a private-sector company the counterpart is the National Social Security Institute (INPS), and the governing text is the Social Security Code, Law No. 99-041 of 12 August 1999, as amended by Law No. 03-036 of 30 December 2003 and Law No. 06-008 of 23 January 2006.
The most common error: believing there are three schemes
Many articles in circulation announce three branches. The Code lists four, and it is the fourth that is most often missing from those presentations (Social Security Code, Article 1). All of them are managed by INPS (Article 3).
| The scheme | What it covers | What triggers entitlement |
|---|---|---|
| Family benefits | The worker's family responsibilities | The family situation, declared and evidenced |
| Compensation and prevention of workplace accidents and occupational diseases | Risks arising from work | The accident or the established occupational disease |
| Old age, invalidity and death insurance | Pensions and annuities | Age, incapacity or death |
| Protection against sickness | The company medical service and care | The company's affiliation and the employee's registration |
The second line is the one that puts the company in the front line: it rests on a declaration you must make, within a forty-eight hour deadline. We come back to it below.
2. The three obligations the Labour Code places directly on you
The Labour Code does not describe the benefits: that is for the Social Security Code. But it lays down three obligations that govern access to them, each time referring to the second text for their performance.
- Provide a medical or health service. Every undertaking or establishment is required to do so, the Social Security Code setting the arrangements (Labour Code, article L.177). Those arrangements are in Article 36 of the Social Security Code: prevention on one side, care on the other. And wherever the number of employees in a locality allows, INPS creates an Inter-company Medical Centre which every employer must join (Article 37).
- Report accidents within forty-eight hours. The employer must notify the labour inspector of any workplace accident or occupational disease established in the undertaking, within forty-eight hours (Labour Code, article L.176).
- Open maternity entitlements. During maternity leave the employee is entitled to free medical care and to the remuneration she was receiving, on the conditions set by the Social Security Code, and keeps her entitlement to benefits in kind (Labour Code, article L.182).
What these three cross-references have in common is telling: the Labour Code creates the right, the Social Security Code governs its performance. A company that reads only the first knows its obligations without knowing how to meet them; one that reads only the second knows the procedures without knowing what triggers them.
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3. Two declarations, two deadlines: do not confuse them
This is the costliest confusion, because it is invisible. One hire triggers two separate declarations, to two different recipients, within two different deadlines.
| The declaration | To whom | Within what deadline |
|---|---|---|
| Hiring declaration | To the body that carried out the placement | 15 days (Labour Code, article L.309) |
| Movement declaration (hiring and end of contract) | To the Manpower Office, which forwards it to INPS without delay | 8 days from the start or the end of the work (Social Security Code, Article 163) |
The shorter deadline is the one most often forgotten. Eight days, and it runs from the first day of work, not from the end of probation or the signing of the written contract.
Why the requirement? Because the provision of benefits is subject to the prior formalities of company affiliation and employee registration (Article 164). An unregistered employee does not exist for the Institute.
No declaration, no registration. No registration, no benefit.
What the missing declaration costs
The sanction is not a fine. It is more direct: INPS may charge the employer with the cost of benefits provided to employees for whom the declaration was not filed (Article 165). In other words, the Institute pays the employee, then turns to you.
That is exactly what awaits Faso Briques in Amadou's case. The company will not pay a procedural penalty: it will carry the cost of care, of daily allowances and, if the incapacity becomes permanent, of the capital value of the annuity.
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4. The workplace accident: forty-eight hours, four copies
The Labour Code sets the deadline; the Social Security Code sets the form. The employer must report immediately, or at the latest within forty-eight hours, any workplace accident or occupational disease established in the undertaking (Social Security Code, Article 71).
The report is drawn up in four copies on the official forms issued by the Institute, and it states the place, cause, circumstances and likely consequences of the accident, together with the victim's identity and occupational category.
| The copy | Where it goes |
|---|---|
| 1 | Sent directly to INPS within 48 hours |
| 2 and 3 | Sent within the same deadline to the Regional Labour Inspectorate, or to the head of the administrative district where the accident occurred outside the district in which the Inspectorate sits |
| 4 | Filed in the company's records, available on request |
Two steps go with the filing, and they are owed as soon as the accident happens: arrange emergency first aid, notify the doctor of the company medical service or, failing that, the nearest doctor, and direct the victim to the nearest medical centre or hospital (Article 72).
Finally, if the victim has not returned to work within three days of the accident, it is for the employer to request a medical certificate describing their condition and the likely duration of the incapacity (Article 73).
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5. Contributions: a due date that depends on your headcount
Many companies apply a monthly rhythm without asking whether it is theirs. The Code sets two due dates, and headcount decides (Social Security Code, Article 199).
| Your headcount | When you pay | What you file with it |
|---|---|---|
| More than 9 employees | Within the first 15 days of each month | A summary contribution return stating the wages used as the base (Article 203), and a quarterly nominative statement (Article 204) |
| Fewer than 10 employees | Within the first 15 days of each quarter | The same documents, on the same due date |
With its 45 employees, Faso Briques pays monthly. A company of eight pays quarterly: applying the monthly rhythm costs it nothing, but the reverse carries a real risk.
Two rules govern the employee share. It is deducted at each payday and the employee cannot object (Article 201). And if you cannot meet the payment on the due date, you must nonetheless immediately pay the Institute the amounts deducted from your employees' pay (Article 202): that money is not yours, it is only passing through.
Non-payment of contributions does not relieve you of producing the summary return and the quarterly nominative statement (Article 205). A company in difficulty that stops sending its returns worsens its position instead of freezing it. On payroll records, see Payroll in Mali.
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6. Retirement: the age is not in the Social Security Code
This is counter-intuitive. The pension is paid out by INPS, but the retirement age is in the Labour Code, and it depends on the grading category (Labour Code, article L.60, as amended by Laws No. 2003-37, No. 2011-79 and No. 2019-25).
| Private sector | Retirement age | Continuation by agreement of the parties |
|---|---|---|
| Category A or equivalent | 60 years | Up to 62 |
| Categories B, C, D and E | 58 years | Up to 60 |
A separate article, often confused with the previous one, opens an earlier exit: private-sector workers may request the liquidation of their pension at 57 in category A, and at 55 in the other categories. And retirement at the worker's initiative, at those ages, does not amount to resignation (Labour Code, article L.60 bis, introduced by Law No. 2019-25).
The distinction is not theoretical: it governs the treatment of the sums due on departure. Severance and long-service payments are not due where the worker permanently ceases work in order to draw their pension; instead they receive a retirement payment, calculated on the same basis and conditions as severance (Labour Code, article L.55).
The calculation, line by line
Example. A Faso Briques team leader graded in category C retires at 58 after 22 years of service. His average monthly remuneration over the last twelve months is XOF 180,000. The rates of article L.53 apply year by year.
| Service band | Rate | Sub-total |
|---|---|---|
| Years 1 to 5 (5 years) | 20% per year | 5 × 20% = 100% |
| Years 6 to 10 (5 years) | 25% per year | 5 × 25% = 125% |
| Years 11 to 22 (12 years) | 30% per year | 12 × 30% = 360% |
| Total | - | 585% |
XOF 180,000 × 585% = XOF 1,053,000. That is the retirement payment owed by the company, on top of the pension INPS will settle on its side.
That settlement does not start by itself: it requires a request from the person concerned, addressed to the Institute either directly or through their last employer, who must forward it within a period not exceeding six months (Social Security Code, Article 155). A request left on a desk for eight months delays the first pension by as much.
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7. A closer look: supplementary cover replaces nothing
A company may take out additional cover with an insurer. It is a management decision, a useful one, and it follows three method rules.
- It is added to compulsory cover, never substituted for it. A private policy dispenses with neither affiliation, nor contributions, nor declarations.
- It is discussed with staff representatives, who have a right of expression on the content, conditions and organisation of work through representative institutions (Labour Code, article L.5).
- It is written down. Beneficiaries, cover, employer share, exit conditions: what is not written becomes custom, and unwinding an established custom is a far heavier operation than drafting a note two years earlier.
Key takeaways in 6 points
- Remember there are four schemes, not three, and that INPS manages all of them.
- Declare every hire and every end of contract to INPS within eight days, and to the placement body within fifteen.
- Report every workplace accident within forty-eight hours, in four copies, and keep proof of filing.
- Set the contribution rhythm by headcount: monthly above nine employees, quarterly below.
- Pay over the employee deductions even in a month when the employer share cannot be paid.
- Treat retirement as what it is: neither a resignation nor a dismissal, but a departure that opens entitlement to a payment calculated on the rates of article L.53.