Finance Minister inaugurates SSNIT Board
Mr Ken Ofori-Atta, the Finance Minister on Thursday inaugurated an 11-member Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) Board of Trustees with a charge on them to use their expertise to ensure the Trust’s prosperity and robustness.
He urged the members to adopt prudent management practices to ensure that pensions are decent enough for people to live on.
Besides, they must act in the interest of the contributors of the scheme and represent the collective interest of the tripartite members, employers and pensioners as well as the state.
“Let us always be aware that the Ghanaian people look up to social security investments benefits and key infrastructure development,” Mr Ofori-Atta said.
Currently, SSNIT has over 170,000 pensioners on the roll and about 1.33 million contributors.
Available data indicates that contributions for the year 2016 was GH¢1.86 billion about 12 per cent less than that of 2015, while benefits for the same period amounted to GH¢1.75 billion, a huge jump from 2015.
Mr Ofori-Atta tasked the Board to help reverse the trend of declining contributions vis-a-vis increasing pensions by turning around the Trust’s investment portfolio.
He pledged the government’s commitment to work with management and the Board of SSNIT to see how best government could honour its GHC600 million obligation to the Trust.
On his part, Dr Kwame Addo-Kufuor, the Chairman of the Board of Trustees, said to be able to stabilise the Trust, there would be the need for an extensive review by assessors of its performance and structure to enable a firm diagnosis to be made and appropriate solutions given.
He said a well-managed SSNIT could assist the government in its serious attempt to resuscitate the national economy.
He said SSNIT could also act as a magnet to attract massive foreign direct investment into the country, while partnering the private sector to establish enterprises for job creation.
Dr Addo-Kufuor appealed to the Finance Minister to help resolve the issue of the sluggish payment of contributions of workers on government payroll and delayed payment of SSNIT Bonds and the interest to the Trust.
Source: GNA