The Director-General of the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT), Dr John Ofori-Tenkorang, has charged managers to provide the right information on the scheme to encourage more people to sign on.
According to him, out of the about 13 million persons in the informal sector, only 1.7 million people were active members, and reiterated the need to add on more people to benefit from the pension scheme.
“What that tells us clearly is that our approach has not worked well enough. Whilst I acknowledge the journey of innovation, improved service delivery and general transformation we have all been on these last few years, it appears we need to do far more,” he added.
Dr Ofori-Tenkorang made these statements on Wednesday at the opening of a three-day Annual Operations Conference organised by SSNIT in Koforidua in the Eastern Region.
The annual conference themed “Ensuring sustainability of the SSNIT Scheme, through effective and efficient operational business processes; leveraging modern and reliable technology”, brought together 107 top Management, Departmental heads as well as Area and Branch Managers from across the country.
The purpose of the conference is to enable participants to discuss the performance of the Trust during the previous year and the first three quarters of 2021 and also enable them adopt strategies to improve operational output in 2022.
The Director-General stated that in spite of the 56-year existence of the Trust and despite the gains the Trust has made over the past five years, a lot more needed to be done to get more people on the scheme.
He regretted the failure of the Trust to articulate the value of the Scheme and the generous benefits it offered to workers especially those in the informal sector to secure their future.
He said if there could be a “reorientation of mindsets and a change to our approach to business from a business that has traditionally relied almost solely on the law to operate and to enforce compliance to one that is concerned with building and maintaining lifelong relationships” then the Trust could make strides.
Speaking on the theme, the Deputy Director-General, Operations and Benefits, Laurette Korkor Otchere for her part, said sustainability of the SSNIT Scheme was essential and must be the bedrock on which the Trust operates, adding that it could be achieved by leveraging modern and reliable technology.
According to her, the use of data analytics, which allowed managers to generate real-time performance reports as opposed to the previous manual reports that were generated, has helped improved the performance of the Divisions under her directorate.
“The directorate continued to use the Results-Based monitoring dashboards to monitor all operational activities with a focus on the impact on the sustainability of the Scheme,” she said and commended her team for embracing the new and improved work culture.
FROM AMA TEKYIWAA AMPADU AGYEMAN, KOFORIDUA
