Less than 1% of FDI stakeholders concerned about SSNIT benefits – Report

A research report by the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC), the World Economic Forum and CUTS Ghana, has indicated that most stakeholders in FDI inflows into Ghana do not see the payment of their Social Security and National Investment Trust (SSNIT) contributions by foreign companies as an important benefit of such investment inflows, despite their seeing job creation as the most important benefit of FDI.

The document seeks to identify the biggest benefits that foreign direct investments (FDIs) create and its possible contributions to sustainable development.

The most important development benefits that stakeholders identified from FDIs include job creation, identified by 86 percent of respondents, followed by skills enhancement (68 percent).

However, less than one percent of stakeholders surveyed do not consider the social security contributions paid by foreign direct investors on behalf of their employees as being a significant benefit.

Though the report did not state why most stakeholders are not interested in the payment of their social security by investors, the phenomenon could partly be attributed to the high unemployment level, and how securing a job could actually be much more highly valued than the payment of SSNIT benefits.

Apart from the lack of interest in social security, the report also recorded minimal developmental benefits of the human resource potentials of employees and resettlement compensation for families affected by the setting up of companies that drive in FDIs.

Meanwhile, other benefits including export of finished goods, legal compliance fair wages among others, rank high on the chart.