Organisations owe SSNIT C14.8 billion cedis

Accra, May 18, GNA - Four hundred sixty-five establishments are indebted to the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) to the tune of 14.8 billion cedis of unpaid workers' contributions to the SSNIT Pension Scheme as at the end of April.

Ms Sheila Sampson, Deputy Manager of the Adabraka District of SSNIT, announced this when she spoke on: "Problems With Enforcement of Compliance - The Role of The Employer," at a day's seminar for employers and scheduled officers on pensions of establishments.

Ms Sampson told the seminar, organised by SSNIT as part of its public education programme that it was the duty of employers to register all employees, both permanent and casual and to pay such contributions for both normal salaries and salary arrears to the scheme.

It was also important that employers made available monthly Contributors' Report to SSNIT to ensure that all workers' contributions were properly credited by SSNIT.

She appealed to employers to promptly pay workers' contributions to the scheme to ensure that workers retired in dignity.

Mr Kwaku Osei Bimpong, Head of Public Affairs of SSNIT, who touched on the new image of SSNIT, said the organisation was working towards speeding up the payment of monthly pensions to beneficiaries. He said they were also making SSNIT more customer friendly and that they had also started a programme dubbed: "Age 54-Project", which involved the cleaning up of data of employees, who were nearing their retiring age to facilitate prompt payment of their benefits. Invalid social security numbers, inaccurate bio-data including wrong date of birth, were some problems identified by SSNIT as challenges confronting the organisations in managing the Pension Scheme.