SSNIT will no longer pay lump sum to its members on pension

The Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) will no longer pay accumulative lump sum of money as pension to its members when they are on retirement under the new SSNIT pension scheme, Mr. Abudu Abdul Karimu, Upper West Regional Manager of SSNIT has said.

He said by the National Pensions Act of 2008 (Act 766) SSNIT had been mandated to pay only monthly pension to its members when they are on retirement,.

However, workers who were 55 years and above as at January 1,2010 were still covered by PNDC law 247 and SSNIT would continue to pay them the accumulative lump sum when they were on pension for the five-year period.

Mr. Karimu was educating workers on the new pension scheme during this year’s May Day celebration in Wa on Tuesday at its customer clinic organised for workers to straighten their records with the scheme.

He said a worker was mandated to contribute 5.5 per cent of his or her basic salary to the scheme while the employer contributed 13 per cent on behalf of the worker, totaling 18.5 per cent.

He said an employer was obliged by law to remit 13.5 per cent within 14 days after the end of each month to SSNIT and SSNIT would subsequently remits 2.5 per cent out of the 13.5 per cent to the National Health Insurance Authority for member’s health insurance.

The remaining 5 per cent is paid to the Mandatory Second Tier work-based contributory, privately managed scheme.

Mr. Karimu explained that the 5 per cent that SSNIT remits to the Second Tier would be used to manage an employee’s accumulative lump sum of money as pension to its members when they are on retirement under the new SSNIT pension scheme.

The third tier he also explained was a voluntary scheme similar to provident fund managed in the offices.

Some workers who patronized the clinic in an interview with the Ghana News Agency commended the management of SSNIT for the initiative and called on them to make the exercise a regular one to give rural workers the opportunity to update their records.**