Govt pays ¢1 billion out of debt owed SSNIT

The Director-General of the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT), Dr. John Ofori-Tenkorang, has disclosed that the government has so far paid GH¢1 billion out of its debt owed to the trust.

Although the Director-General did not mention the total amount owed, he said the part payment was made through the issuance of quarterly bonds and cash payments.

Speaking in an interview with Graphic Business, the SSNIT boss said his outfit engaged the government in 2019 on the debt payment.

“Governments in the past, when there is some tightness in the fiscal space haven’t been regular in paying the necessary remittances so there had been debt that has piled up. We engaged the government and the President through the Ministry of Finance has been quite good.

“Last year, when we engaged them, the minister promised to retire all arrears including the ones it inherited by issuing us GH¢500 million in bonds every quarter,” he explained.

He added that in March 2020, the government paid about GH¢700 million in cash to remain liquid.

“We received GH¢500 million in the first quarter of 2020, another GH¢500 million in the second quarter, the third quarter has ended and hopefully we will get another GH¢500 million.

“If the government follows through with this programme, by the middle of next year, we would have made significant improvement in paying the arrears, '' he stated.

The Director-General also indicated that SSNIT would resolve the differences in the payment of the lump sum for people who went on retirement this year.

“There is a committee that is currently working on the differences and basically within next month, the calculation would be made and latest during the first quarter of the year they will be paid. We had an agreement with labour where we had a month to work out these differences.