Govt’s indebtedness to SSNIT hits GH¢ 560m

Government's indebtedness to the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) stood at 560 million cedis as at December 2015.

This represents of the total indebtedness to the pensions scheme which is estimated at 640 million cedis.

Although the figure is an improvement from the 2014 amount of 1.15 billion cedis, the managers of the Trust want authorities to expedite processes to retrieve all outstanding debts.

The report which gives a five year trend of the indebtedness to SSNIT mentioned that the total contributions in arrears almost tripled between 2011 and 2015.

The figure went up from 218 to 640 million cedis.
Of this, total indebtedness due to private businesses was 79 million cedis while total debt due to public establishments amounted to 561 million cedis.

Even though the private sector's contribution to the debts has largely declined, the highest figure was recorded in 2013 when it recorded 101 million cedis. Similarly, the debts due to public institutions reached its peak in 2014 where the figure went up to as much as 1.15 billion cedis.

A year on year analysis further shows that SSNIT has been able to reduce its indebtedness due to the public institutions by half; from 1.2 to 600 million cedis.

This the immediate Board Chairman of SSNIT, Prof. Joshua Alabi attributes to strategies embarked on by the management.

Meanwhile, total benefits paid by the pension scheme went up to 1.2 billion cedis in 2015 from the 941 million cedis the previous year.

Also, the pension's scheme in 2015 mobilized 2.1 billion cedis in contributions in 2015 up by almost 19 percent from the 2014 figures.

As part of efforts to re-strategize the operations of SSNIT, the current Board of Trustees has commissioned an audit into the operations of the pensions' fund.

The exercise, to be carried out by audit firm, Price Waterhouse Coopers will last for eight weeks. But the Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Dr. Kwame AddoKufour is optimistic of a turnaround in the fortunes of the entity with the recommendations to be offered by the auditors.

“The board members and management of trust are conscious of the heavy responsibility our engagement with SSNIT places on us so I would like to assure you that we are fortunate to have very dedicated board members and very competent and patriotic management I don't want to brag but in the short to medium term we will definitely see positive change in the Trust. The board members and the management are conscious of the huge responsibility on us and we are going to do our best”.

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By: Anita Arthur/citibusinessnews.com/Ghana