Voluntary Contributions, as the term implies, are payments that you do not have to make to the Social Security Scheme because you are neither employed nor self-employed at the time.
If you go abroad to work for an establishment which is still fully based in the Federation, your contributions to Social Security are still mandatory for (at most) up to twelve months from your employer. After that, you will no longer be eligible or obliged to pay contributions but can then elect to pay voluntary contributions on your own behalf.
If you are between the ages of 16 and 62 and have been an employee or a self employed person with at least 104 weekly contributions on your record, and you then become unemployed, you may wish to continue to pay contributions voluntarily to ensure the growth of your contribution record. The effect of this is to help you to qualify for, or to enhance, your long term benefits of Age and Survivors Pension.
A very important consideration is that even after you may have qualified for Age Pension (by having 500 weekly contributions in the fund) any additional weekly contributions will serve to increase the percentage rating on which your pension would be based. In other words, the more contribution weeks put in, the higher would be your rate of pension. This is one great reason to add to your contribution record by paying your very own VOLUNTARY CONTRIBUTIONS.
So you can really pay if you want!