Suriname: Parental Leave Facilities Fund (FVO)

As of April 1, 2023, a new social scheme and premium will apply to the payroll administration. It concerns the FVO premium.

The Parental Leave Facilities Fund (FVO) already started with the registration obligation for employers a few weeks ago, which registration precedes the moment of payment of paid parental leave.

The parental leave entails 16 weeks of paid maternity leave for the working mother and 8 days of paid paternity leave for the working father.

The Bureau FVO pays the total gross wage (meaning the basic wage excluding any allowances and/or other wage emoluments) over the 16 weeks of pregnancy and maternity leave to the employer, and the employer is responsible for payment to the employee. In other words: the regular gross salary is paid by the Bureau FVO, but all other salary components in addition to the regular gross salary remain at the expense of the employer.

Good provisions have been made in the law for continued payment of wages during pregnancy and maternity leave, as well as paternity leave. The full wage is paid 100% over the entire period by the employer after he/she has received this on request on behalf of the employee from the Fund for Parental Leave Facilities.

Registration obligation
In order to actually proceed to payment of the leave, the fund must, first of all, implement the registration obligation for employees. This registration means that all employers in Suriname are obliged to register their employees with the FVO.

The fund has designed a special form for this purpose, which can be found on the website and on the Facebook page of the Ministry of Labor, Employment & Youth Affairs (AWJ). See link: Parental Leave Facilities Fund (FVO)

The registration obligation lasts until March 31, 2023. Employers who ignore this registration obligation can be fined according to the law. The Labor Inspectorate, which is charged with supervising compliance with this law, will closely monitor whether employers comply with this registration obligation.

FVO premium and basis
The FVO premium amounts to a total of 1% of the gross salary. Both employer and employee contribute 0.5%. The gross salary is understood to be the basis, and with gross salary is meant the monthly basic salary without any allowances and/or other salary emoluments.

Wage codes and general ledger accounts
In Celery, this premium will be automatically added to all employees and wage calculations as of 1 April.

Celery has introduced the following new wage codes and general ledger accounts:

Once again, you do not have to create these wage codes and general ledger numbers yourself, they are added by Celery itself.

If you wish to link these wage codes to other general ledger numbers, this is possible in Employer/General ledgers.

Declaration and payment of the FVO premium
Bureau FVO reports the following regarding the monthly declaration:
‘The FVO Bureau receives a specification of the payments per employee per month by e-mail because changes can occur in the gross salaries of the employee, new hires and leavers, wage adjustments, etc. Since everything is done by e-mail, there will be an e-mail confirmation.’

With regards to the monthly payment of the premium, the information is as follows:
‘The payments by the company will be made monthly to our bank account; the bank details of the FVO Bureau will be published in due course.”

Attachments:

• Scan Wet 10 juni 2019
• Scan van het Staatsbesluit van 18 februari 2020, houdende uitvoering van artikel 15 van de Wet Arbeidsbescherming Gezin (Besluit Arbeidsbescherming Gezin, S.B. 2019, no. 64)
• Registratie formulier FVO 27.02.2023
• Instructies Bureau FVO 02.03.2023