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02.04.2015 General News

'Social Security Is A Right'

By Daily Guide
'Social Security Is A Right'
02.04.2015 LISTEN

DIRECTOR GENERAL of the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT), Ernest Thompson, has asked Ghanaian workers to be interested in social security issues because social security is a right for every worker in the country.

Mr. Thompson, in a speech read for him by the General Manager, Finance, Nii Ajah Nablah, during the 7th Quadrennial Delegates' Conference of the SSNIT local chapter of Industrial and Commercial Workers' Union (ICU) held recently in Sunyani, indicated that every worker needs social security.

The two-day event, which was under the theme, 'Consolidating the Gains of 50 Years of Social Security Administration in Ghana – The Role of Stakeholders,' was attended by delegates from all over the country. It also saw the election of national officers and committee members.

Mr. Thompson said as part of SSNIT's sensitization programme, public education had been on its agenda to educate workers to show much interest in social security matters.

He also stated the need to inculcate the spirit of social security in the youth of Ghana from their infancy and in their educational curriculum, for them to know their rights about social security.

Touching on some of the gains SSNIT had made over the past 50 years the director general said SSNIT had penetrated the entire fabric of Ghana's development, through its spectrum of investment in manufacturing, housing development, commercial properties, educational facilities, transportation, hospitals, multi-storey car parks, abattoirs and markets, among others.

'Currently, SSNIT is the largest public non-bank financial institution in Ghana, and in terms of its impact on its beneficiaries, social security has significantly reduced poverty among the elderly who rely on social security either directly or indirectly,' he pointed out.

Mr. Thompson said SSNIT, which started half a century ago as a department jointly supervised under State Insurance Corporation (SIC) and the Department of Pensions, now has 50 branches across the country, eight area offices and a workforce of over 2,000. It is also the custodian of 144,000 pensioners, 1.2 million active workers and 40,000 employers.

The Brong-Ahafo Regional Minister, Eric Opoku, praised SSNIT for exhibiting a high sense of professionalism by ensuring the progressive introduction of fast and reliable systems for pensioners to access their claims.

He charged the Trust to strategically devise very enduring and secure systems to improve upon their operations in the face of the ever-changing pace of global technology.


FROM Fred Tettey Alarti-Amoako, Sunyani

Email:  [email protected]

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