United Nations Public Service Awards Case Studies

The Parastatal Pensions Fund has its members spread all over the country and others living out of the country for some periods of time. All these members needs services from the Fund in different ways, depending on the members' membership type. The Fund at all times aims at providing quality services to contributing members, contributing employers, pensioners and service providers.

So far the Fund has seven zone offices and three liaison offices within the country and a head office located in Dar es salaam . Due to larger geographical area of the country, not all members can easily visit these offices when they are in need of Fund's services. The main activities of the Fund, i.e. registering members, collecting contributions, investing and paying members benefits, filters the issues members mostly find themselves in need of contacting the Fund to seek for solutions. Most of these issues are common to all members and they include viewing their contributions statements, checking status of their pensions, checking for correctness of their membership particulars, and submitting their queries to the Fund.

The technological advancement, particularly the dramatic growth of mobile phone usage among Tanzanians in recent years and the spread use of the Internet facilities especially in offices, and the proliferation of Internet cafes even in rural areas, stimulated the Fund to look for an alternative way of reaching its members regardless of their geographical spread.

What is the initiative about? (the solution)
The technological advancement, particularly the dramatic growth of mobile phone usage among Tanzanians in recent years and the spread use of the Internet facilities especially in offices, and the proliferation of Internet cafes even in rural areas, stimulated the Fund to look for an alternative way of reaching its members regardless of their geographical spread. In the light of this knowledge, the Parastatal Pensions Fund (PPF) came up with a product named PPF TAARIFA which serves as a solution best fitting the current and future operating environment. PPF TAARIFA is an SMS and Online information System used to provide services to members without the need for members to travel to PPF offices in any location for services that can be provided online through an information system. The application provides easy access of information to the Fund's members, enables timely responses and handles large amounts traffic of member’s requests simultaneously which results in members’ satisfaction. PPF TAARIFA is developed in house, therefore reducing a big slice of acquisition and maintenance costs, which could be incurred by the Fund, had it been sourced otherwise. The system is integrated with the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system, which helps in keeping track of members queries and the way they are assigned and dealt with within the Fund. In so doing, members are guaranteed to get a common status of their queries regardless of the means they use to lodge them or the PPF office location they choose to visit as all the internal dealings are visible by PPF staff at any point as long as they are connected to the Internet.

Who proposed the solution, who implemented it and who were the stakeholders?
The idea behind PPF TAARIFA was jointly proposed by PPF employees in the Directorate of Information Systems namely Baraka Mselemu, Eric Lwambura, Goodluck Msangi, William Nyonyi and Emmanuel Kyomo. Goodluck Msangi designed the application and did the coding for web based end, Eric Lwambura did implementation of SMS communication, Emmanuel Kyomo stood at ensuring that databases and operating systems to support the application are in place while Baraka Mselemu and William Nyonyi ensured that interfaces with other systems and reports are implemented. Their work was well supported by Customer Care and Public relations departments when it came to the right presentation of material and language for communicating messages. Before launching the application, PPF staff were involved in testing it and suggested the necessary changes.

Describe how and when the initiative was implemented by answering these questions
a. What were the strategies used to implement the initiative? In no more than 500 words, provide a summary of the main objectives and strategies of the initiative, how they were established and by whom.
The main objectives were to reach all members within acceptable time and provide them with quality services regardless of our physical outreach. The main reasons to why members visit our offices physically were identified and frequencies assigned to the various reasons. The Customer Care department organised the results and prioritized issues which seem to raise the number of members visiting our offices and communicated the same to IT staff. The IT staff explored the available technologies which can support the service delivery electronically. The IT staff designed the system to provide the services online and via mobile phones.

b. What were the key development and implementation steps and the chronology? No more than 500 words
The implementation of the system took the following steps. System requirements and analysis System Design System development (coding) and integration Reports building System Testing Training for support users and customer care users Closure of the project

c. What were the main obstacles encountered? How were they overcome? No more than 500 words
The main obstacle encountered was inability to configure our own SMS gateway for SMS forwarding. This was a result of lack of skills and time constraint which impeded the idea of skills development. This was overcome by opting to outsource the SMS forwarding fu8nction to Push Mobile company, which of course was done within the planned time and minimum costs.

d. What resources were used for the initiative and what were its key benefits? In no more than 500 words, specify what were the financial, technical and human resources’ costs associated with this initiative. Describe how resources were mobilized
PPF TAARIFA is developed in house, therefore reducing a big slice of acquisition and maintenance costs, which could be incurred by the Fund, had it been sourced otherwise. Internal developers were used and thus adding no extra financial costs to the activity. The small bit of financial cost was experienced in outsourcing the SMS forwarding function, which counted less as compared to the costs the Fund would have to incur in monetary terms and time if skills were to be developed internally. Source of requirements was internal and made the organisation part to be simple. Communication was more effective as the Customer Care unit operates under Directorate of Operations and development was done in the Directorate of Information Systems. These are existing functional units of the Fund, therefore, the completion of the system inherited a well established existing resource mobilization.

Is the initiative sustainable and transferable?
The solution can entirely be appropriate for replication by other social security institutions as it can easily be implemented in house and requires minimum financial and non financial resources. The technologies used are widely available to every organisation at low cost and the skills are also available. The solution could be replicated and a slight modifications, which mainly will be dictated by the kind of requirements the analysis comes with. The technological advancement, particularly the dramatic growth of mobile phone usage among Tanzanians in recent years and the spread use of the Internet facilities especially in offices, and the proliferation of Internet cafes even in rural areas, stimulated the Fund to look for an alternative way of reaching its members regardless of their geographical spread. In the light of this knowledge, the Parastatal Pensions Fund (PPF) came up with a product named PPF TAARIFA which serves as a solution best fitting the current and future operating environment. PPF TAARIFA is an SMS and Online information System used to provide services to members without the need for members to travel to PPF offices in any location for services that can be provided online through an information system. The application provides easy access of information to the Fund's members, enables timely responses and handles large amounts traffic of member’s requests simultaneously which results in members’ satisfaction. PPF TAARIFA is developed in house, therefore reducing a big slice of acquisition and maintenance costs, which could be incurred by the Fund, had it been sourced otherwise. The system is integrated with the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system, which helps in keeping track of members queries and the way they are assigned and dealt with within the Fund. In so doing, members are guaranteed to get a common status of their queries regardless of the means they use to lodge them or the PPF office location they choose to visit as all the internal dealings are visible by PPF staff at any point as long as they are connected to the Internet.

What are the impact of your initiative and the lessons learned?
Ever since the system came into usage, the number of visitors for our website, through which the web portal is attached have increased. Queries from mobile phones have also been increasing everyday. For these reasons, PPF is now finalizing the configurations of a private SMS Gateway which will enable pushing bulk SMSs to members notifying them the status of various matters regarding their membership. This again is expected to serve a great deal in improving communication to members in a cost effective proactive way. Reminders to the Funds staff on various pending issues will also be implemented so that unnecessary delays to attending customers can be minimized.


Institution Name:		PARASTATAL PENSIONS FUND
Institution Type:		Public Organization
Contact Person:		ROBERT MTENDAMEMA
Title:		DIRECTOR OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS
Telephone/ Fax:		+255 22 2113919-21
Institution's / Project's Website:		www.ppftz.org
E-mail:		asanga@ppftz.org
Address:		P.O.BOX 72473
Postal Code:		255
City:		DAR ES SALAAM
State/Province:
Country:		Tanzania

The Problem

Solution and Key Benefits

Actors and Stakeholders

(a) Strategies

(b) Implementation

(c) Overcoming Obstacles

(d) Use of Resources

Sustainability and Transferability

Lessons Learned

Contact Information