Government debt to SSNIT made it reject Mahama's suggestion - Brogya Genfi

National Democratic Congress (NDC) communications team member, Brogya Genfi, has said it is a brilliant suggestion for former President John Dramani Mahama to advise the current government to allow the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) pay workers twenty percent of their contributions.

In a Facebook Live session on Thursday, 23 April 2020 on Ghana’s COVID-19 situation, the NDC flagbearer said: “My office has been flooded with correspondence from many working-class people, especially in the private sector, who have not received their February and/or March salaries, and are having a difficult time feeding and taking care of their families.

“The lockdown may have been lifted but many businesses are still down and suffering. Employees are suffering, too, just as the many players in the informal sector.

“It makes me wonder why our SSNIT has not been responsive in this time of need of many contributors. Social Security contributions are, essentially, an insurance scheme made not just for pensions in old age before we die.

“They are also meant to help contributors in times of adversity such as this. Remember that not all will come out and queue for food. Not all will come out of their homes to receive the food boxes we hand over.

“But as has been done in other countries like St. Lucia, I think a token payment to all contributors of a certain token sum over three months would have afforded many the assurance of feeding their families during these abnormal times.”

Speaking on UTV's 'Adekye Nsroma' newspaper discussion segment, Brogya Genfi categorically stated that "President Akufo-Addo has intentionally refused to make SSNIT cushion its beneficiaries because he knows his government owe them about 4.5 billion Ghana cedis and should he (President Akufo-Addo) succumb to this suggestion, then government will be forced to pay the debt owed".

He said President Akufo-Addo has every power to make SSNIT pay its beneficiaries 20% of their contributions made to them in the past to cushion their lives for three months.

He further explained that government has to just go to parliament for approval to allow SSNIT bail out it's benefactors since the country's economy is now in an Intensive Care Unit stage.