Aggudey's imprisonment should be a lesson - SSNIT tells employers

Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) has said the imprisonment of presidential candidate of the Convention People's Party (CPP) in the 2004 elections George Aggudey for failing to pay the SSNIT contributions of his workers should serve as a wakeup call to defaulting employers.

An Accra Circuit court Saturday sentenced Mr. Aggudey, who owns Gocrest Security Company, to three months in prison and also pay a fine of 500 penalty units as well as all monies owed SSNIT.

The Corporate Affairs Manager at SSNIT, Eva Amegashie told Joy News, this provides lessons for both employers and employees in deepening the culture of social security in the country.

According to her, "This calls for all of us to make social security a key issue in this country. It's a form of a clarion call to all workers, all employers, all workers unions and associations to be vigilant to ensure that their social security contributions are not compromised."

Eva Amegashie explained that, "This has been going back and forth, there are so many employers owing but when they come they go to court they agree, they make the necessary arrangements with the courts and they pay and nobody hears it."

"But this particular one you can count the number of times they've gone to court. We don't enjoy taking employers to court but we want to make sure that they go by the obligations of Act 766," she noted.

Mr. Aggudey was arraigned before the court in February for non-payment of a total of GHS2.6m SSNIT contributions of his workers.