SSNIT engages stakeholders to enhance operations

The Social Security and National Insurance Scheme (SSNIT) has held a stakeholder consultation with participants drawn from the informal sector in the Central Region.

The programme was part of measures put in place by management of the scheme to increase the coverage of self-employed and informal sector workers in the region.

It also served as a platform to solicit the views of participants on how to enhance the operations of the scheme for employees, under the informal sector to conveniently pay their SSNIT contributions.

In a presentation the Acting Chief Actuary of SSNIT, Mr Joseph Poku, explained that the benefits from the SSNIT scheme were far more than the total contributions of members in addition to the accrued interests. 

He said: “The scheme pays minimum pension by subsidising pensions for pensioners whose salaries were woefully low when they were in active service or contributors who contributed on a minimal salary to the scheme.” 

According to him, pensions paid depended on the contributions made and the number of months one had contributed. 

Additionally, MrPoku said the scheme ensured the payment of pensions till a person who had been enrolled on the scheme died, explaining that the payment was to help reduce the over-dependence on family members and friends during old age or in the event of permanent invalidity.

On the payment of SSNIT by employees under the informal sector, he said, about 14,000 self-employed workers out of the estimated 10 million self-employed and workers in the informal sector contributed to the SSNIT Pension Scheme.

He, therefore, said that the stakeholder engagement was to ensure an increase in the number of informal sector workers onto the SSNIT scheme.

Mr Poku explained further that, the scheme was not only meant for employees under the formal sector of the economy, saying, “Every worker both within the formal and informal sectors should be part of the scheme.”

He said the implementation of the SSNIT pension scheme was to ensure that every worker retired in dignity.

Some of the participants expressed their appreciation to management of SSNIT for the engagement in the Central Region.

They, however, expressed the need for the leadership of the institution to carry out further engagements with workers from the informal sector to enable them to have an understanding about the operations of the SSNIT Pension Scheme.

For her part, a representative from the Ghana National Dressmakers and Tailors Association (GNDTA), Madam Doris Abaidoo, commended management of SSNIT for the initiative, and explained that it would go a long way to get a number of people from the informal sector to register with the scheme.

She noted that, the stakeholder engagement was very critical, saying, “Management of SSNIT needs to sustain this engagement.”

The chief fisherman of Moree, NanaaKweigya, also lauded the management of SSNIT for coming up with the public engagement.

FROM DAVID O. YARBOI-TETTEH, CAPE COAST