Employment law
Pensions: Changing pension scheme INPS <==> CMSS
The treatment room at Clinique Kalaban Santé, night shift. Aïssata, a nurse, prepares drips with gestures learned over nine years in a public hospital. Recruited by the clinic four years ago, she is worried: will her years as a civil servant count towards her pension? It all depends on a transfer of contributions that nobody has taken care of.
Clinique Kalaban Santé and the people mentioned in this article are fictitious: they are used as examples only.
1. What exactly are we talking about?
Clinique Kalaban Santé employs 60 people in Bamako. Like all her colleagues, Aïssata is covered there by the Labour Code. That was not the case at the public hospital: civil servants, judges and members of the armed forces are excluded from the Labour Code (Labour Code, article L.1).
Two funds therefore coexist. Employees covered by the Labour Code contribute to the National Social Security Institute (INPS) (Social Security Code, articles 2 and 3). Civil servants come under the Caisse des retraites du Mali, named in the Code, replaced by the Caisse malienne de sécurité sociale (CMSS) (Law No. 10-029/AN-RM of 12 July 2010).
A change of scheme is moving from one of these funds to the other during a career. In that case, the pension body the worker leaves pays over to the receiving body the contributions, both employee and employer shares, collected on their behalf (Social Security Code, article 161).
Why this rule? Without it, a career split between the public and private sectors would be cut into two pieces too short to open a pension.
The most common mistake
Believing that years spent in the civil service are lost on entering the private sector, or that they will give rise to two small separate pensions. The Code organises a transfer of contributions to the receiving fund.
You change funds, not careers: contributions follow the worker.
2. Adding up rather than losing
For a retirement pension from the INPS, at least thirteen years of salaried employment giving rise to contributions are required (Social Security Code, article 143). At the time of liquidation, the insured person attaches to the application the evidence of their previous service (Social Security Code, article 155).
Example. Aïssata worked nine years as a civil servant, then four years at the clinic.
Service in the civil service: 9 × 12 = 108 months
Service at the clinic, contributed to the INPS: 4 × 12 = 48 months
Total with transfer of contributions: 108 + 48 = 156 months, i.e. thirteen years: the pension threshold is reached
| Scenario | Period taken into account by the INPS | Retirement entitlement |
|---|---|---|
| Without transfer of contributions | 4 years | No old-age benefit: less than six years |
| With transfer of contributions | 13 years | Retirement pension (article 143) |
Without the transfer, Aïssata would not even have the six years of insurance required for the old-age allowance (article 147). With the transfer, she can claim a pension. See our article Retirement: standard pension.
What you need to do
- Ask any employee recruited after a public-sector career for the history of their service and contributions.
- Advise the employee to file their request for transfer of contributions to the INPS with the CMSS, then to check with the INPS that the transfer has actually been made.
- Keep the documents proving their previous service in their personnel file.
3. The trap of contributions never collected
Article 161 covers contributions “collected” on the worker’s behalf. Only what has actually been paid is transferred. On the private side, everything therefore depends on the employer: it must declare each hiring to the INPS within eight days (Social Security Code, article 163) and pay contributions within the first fifteen days of the month or quarter (article 199).
Example. The clinic forgot to declare Aïssata during her first six months.
Period taken into account: 156 − 6 = 150 months
150 months is less than the 156 months required for the pension
Benefit possible at 53: the old-age allowance, a fixed amount of 26% of twice the SMIG
With a SMIG of XOF 40,000 and average remuneration of XOF 220,000: pension of 220,000 × 26% = XOF 57,200, against an allowance of 80,000 × 26% = XOF 20,800
Loss for Aïssata: 57,200 − 20,800 = XOF 36,400 per month
What the employer risks
The INPS may charge the employer with the cost of benefits paid to an employee whose hiring was not declared to it (article 165). It may also recover benefits paid during periods without contributions, without exempting the employer from paying the contributions due (article 213).
Six forgotten months can cost a whole pension.
What you need to do
- Declare every new hire to the INPS within eight days, without exception.
- Check every quarter that the nominative statement sent to the INPS covers all employees.
- Regularise any forgotten period without delay, before it deprives an employee of a pension.
4. In the event of a dispute with the fund
If the INPS does not take previous service into account or disputes the insurance period, the challenge follows a two-step procedure (article 162). The INPS Amicable Appeals Committee must be approached first; only then can the dispute be brought before the Labour Court (Social Security Code, article 238).
The employee therefore has every interest in gathering evidence long before retirement: appointment decisions, salary and pay slips, certificates from both funds.
What you need to do
- Help the employee gather proof of service from the date of hiring.
- Refer the matter to the Amicable Appeals Committee first in the event of disagreement over the period taken into account.
- Take the case to the Labour Court only after this first step.
5. A closer look: other moves
The transfer works both ways: a private-sector employee who becomes a civil servant sees their INPS contributions transferred to the civil servants’ fund, which then applies its own rules (article 161).
Be careful, however, with contract staff of the State and local authorities: they are not civil servants. The Labour Code even sets their retirement age (article L.60). Moving from a contract post to a private-sector job is therefore not a change of scheme within the meaning of article 161.
Key takeaways in 5 points
- Remember that civil servants come under a fund other than the INPS, and that contributions are transferred when the scheme changes.
- Add up public and private service: this is often what makes it possible to reach the thirteen years needed for a pension.
- Declare every hiring within eight days: only contributions actually collected are taken into account.
- Have the employee gather proof of their previous service well before retirement.
- Approach the Amicable Appeals Committee before the Labour Court in the event of disagreement.