SSNIT addresses concerns of contributors.

The Upper East Regional Branch of the  Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) on Monday started a five-day public education clinic to address the concerns of contributors.

The clinic which was held at the forecourt of the Bolgatanga Municipal Assembly was to create easy access for contributors’ information and for the general public to ask questions related to their contributions.

Mr Charles Antwi-Bosiako, Regional Branch Manager, said contributors had problems that needed to be addressed, and so SSNIT was offering the general public the opportunity to approach the Trust during the five-day exercise to lay bare their problems.

He said the open clinic offered the contributors the opportunity to check on their updates and to alert SSNIT where there were problems so it could help to address them.

He said this would help to eliminate problems relating to contributors’ retirement benefits when they reached the retiring age, saying ”we want to be able to pay retired workers their benefits one month after they are retired and avoid people waiting so long”.

Mr Antwi-Bosiako said SSNIT was an income replacement institution for contributors who went on retirement and that it was obliged to ensure that information on beneficiaries was accurate.

He said contributors’ inability to update their records and, most especially those of their beneficiaries, posed problems when such beneficiaries were dead and families needed to make follow ups for the benefits.

He said families and individuals used middle men to pursue their retirement benefits or death benefits of contributors which often resulted in a lot of fraud and undue delays in the payment of such benefits.

Source: GNA