Repayment of SSNIT students' loans is mandatory

Obuasi (Ash), Aug 14, GNA- The Deputy Head of Public Affairs Department of the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT), Miss Eva Amegashie, said on Wednesday that the re-payment of SSNIT students' loan is mandatory since the scheme has no room for "bad debts".

"We do not have bad debts in our vocabulary and that students loans must be paid", she said.

Miss Amegashie, who was speaking at an Employers Seminar organised by SSNIT at Obuasi in Ashanti, therefore appealed to employers to assist SSNIT to track down beneficiaries of students' loans who have refused to make refund.

She explained that guarantors of the loans are made to repay them as a last resort since the law allowed 10 years for the beneficiaries to pay back the loans either cash down or by instalments.

Speaking on the topic: "SSNIT's New Image", Miss Amegashie said SSNIT was committed to providing cutting edge income replacement scheme to workers and their dependants in the event of old age, permanent disability or death.

The Deputy Head of Public Affairs said a number of initiatives have been designed to help SSNIT to achieve its new image.

"We have developed new mission and vision that will help to develop SSNIT into a world-class financial institution dedicated to the promotion of economic security of Ghanaian workers".

Miss Amegashie appealed to employers to co-operate, stressing that, "in all these initiatives to improve on our service, our expectation is that employers will share in our vision to administer an efficient pension scheme".

Mr Emmanuel K. Antwi, the Adansi West District Director of the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE), who deputised for the District Chief Executive, observed that though the SSNIT concept was laudable, its operations over the years had been fraught with a lot of misconceptions, suspicions, fear and distrust.

He, therefore, welcomed the organisation of the seminar and expressed the hope that the participants would become more enlightened on the operations of the scheme.