The
Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) has saved
GH¢43million as of April this year, after deleting over 6,300 ghost
pensioners from its payroll.
The Trust in February last year began an
exercise to clean the pension’s payroll of ghost names in collaboration
with the banks – which monitored dormant accounts over time and
terminated those it
deemed ghost pensioners.
Dr. John Ofori-Tenkorang, the
Director-General of SSNIT who made this known, indicated that cleaning
the pensions payroll formed part of the prudent internal and external
management and cost-saving practices aimed at building a robust,
self-sustaining Scheme.
SSNIT has a total of 1,551,718 active
contributors as of March 2019, and 205,094 pensioners on its payroll –
with the highest paid pensioner receiving GH¢55,899.57 a month, while
the minimum pension paid is GH300.00.
Dr. Ofori-Tenkorang was speaking at an
educational forum organised by SSNIT in collaboration with the Trades
Union Congress (TUC) to discuss social security issues, particularly on
pensions and benefit computations.
It was aimed at promoting knowledge of the
SSNIT Scheme, empowering organised labour as peer educators for the
Trust and demystifying controversial issues surrounding computation of
benefits to contributors.
Dr. Ofori-Tenkorang stressed that
sustainability of the Scheme is very essential, and urged all
institutions to ensure that the Trust runs efficiently and effectively.
He
said the external actuarial valuation suggested that the contribution
rate necessary to pay benefits over the next 50 years and to accumulate
assets representing three years of total expenditure is around 19.2
percent.
Last year, he said, the Trust spent
GH¢2.5billion on benefits payments – and indicated that GH¢230million is
being spent on funding pensions payment to over 200,000 pensioners
monthly.
Dr. Ofori-Tenkorang added that more than
one million cedis is spent on Invalidity Pension every month, adding
that SSNIT is committed to paying all legitimate claims.
He said there are no myths surrounding
benefits computation, and that pensions are direct reflections of
salaries from which contributions are paid, saying: “With the SSNIT
Pension Scheme, what you put in is what you get out”.
He said SSNIT has embarked on an aggressive
public education agenda to promote knowledge of the scheme among
Ghanaians, and that the Trust is leveraging on its large social media
following to educate and engage millennials.
Mr. Joseph Poku, the Pensions Manager who
took participants through the SSNIT benefits computation, enumerated the
three factors that are considered in computation of benefits under the
National Pensions Act 2008, Act 766 – being age, average of best 36
months’ salary, and earned pension right.
He
said a contributor is entitled to a pension right based on the number
of months contributed to the Scheme, and gave the minimum and maximum
pension right earned for 180 and 420 months as 37.5 and 60 percent
respectively.
He said salary is a key factor in the
computation of pensions – and so the higher the salary percentage figure
one contributes, the higher his/her pension.
Mr. Joshua Ansah, the Deputy General Secretary of TUC, noted with concern that some workers connive with their employers to pay little contributions to SSNIT and deposit huge sums to the private trust funds.
Mr. Joshua Ansah, the Deputy General Secretary of TUC, noted with concern that some workers connive with their employers to pay little contributions to SSNIT and deposit huge sums to the private trust funds.
He advised workers to be interested in
consolidating their salaries in order to have a meaningful pension
instead of bagging huge allowances, which have no bearing on the
computation of pensions.
SSNIT was established in 1972 under NRCD
127. It manages the First Tier Contributions of 13.5 percent of workers’
basic salary. Eleven percent of the amount is invested in the Social
Security Fund, while 2.5 percent goes into the National Health Insurance
Scheme.
GNA
FIN
FIN
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