Published on 28 June, 2019.

Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) in collaboration with the Trade Union Congress have undertaken a nationwide educational fora on pensions. The educational fora were conducted from 21st May to 14th June 2019 in ten (10) selected regional capitals.

Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) in collaboration with the Trade Union Congress have undertaken a nationwide educational fora on pensions. The educational fora were conducted from 21^st May to 14^th June 2019 in ten (10) selected regional capitals.

The regional meetings were held to promote knowledge of the SSNIT Scheme, empower organized labour as peer educators on social security issues and demystify some of the misconceptions surrounding pensions computation. The meetings were part of the Trust’s program to intensify public education with key stakeholders of the Scheme.

Speaking in Kumasi, the Secretary General, Dr Anthony Yaw Baah stated in his address that, in his 35years with the union, this was the first time such fora on pensions were held to enable SSNIT interact with organized labour to clear doubts regarding the operations of the Basic Pension Administrator. He urged members to be attentive and ask all the relevant questions during the open forum session.

Mr Hayford Attah Krufi, CEO of NPRA on the other hand, indicated that the essence of the engagement was to support SSNIT become a better service-centred institution, rebuild the trust of members and enhance the culture of transparency in its operations, hence the directive to intensify public education.

The Director- General of SSNIT, Dr John Ofori- Tenkorang in his presentation   described the SSNIT Scheme as a good one. He stated that the scheme offers members a life insurance policy, adding that it takes care of all pre- existing conditions without a medical examination and it allows you to join all the way up to the age of 45 where certain risks are quite high. ‘‘I have not quantified this, but I am sure that if you were to buy this kind of cover from a private insurance firm, the premium will be quite steep”, he asserted.

He also mentioned that, given that members invested their contributions over the guaranteed period of 12 years in Treasury bills, then the minimum benefit one would get from SSNIT when they qualify for pension far outweighed the earned maximum guarantee. This, explained was the present value of pension, higher than Treasury bills.

Dr John Ofori- Tenkorang also stressed that, there are no myths surrounding benefits computation and that pensions are a direct reflection of salaries on which contributions are paid. ‘‘In effect, the salary on which one contributes is a key factor in the computation of pensions. Therefore, the higher the salary you contribute on, the higher your pension.”

The General Manager, Benefits, Mr Owusu Sekyere took participants through the computation of SSNIT benefits. He explained that three factors considered in the computation of benefits are the age at which one retires, the average of the best three years’ basic salary on which contributions were paid, and the number of months of contributions. He pointed out that only employers could retire workers and not SSNIT. Participants were also taken through how the pension calculator on the SSNIT web portal is used to estimate pensions.

The Deputy Secretary General of TUC, Mr. Joshua Ansah thanked organised labour for their presence in every region the forum was held and for asking all the relevant questions to elicit the needed responses that will assist organised labour understand and become peer educators of the Pension Scheme. ‘‘These nationwide fora have impacted about two thousand (2,000) TUC regional and district heads in Ghana and we are positive that we will be one another’s keeper in disseminating whatever information that has been gathered over the course of the fora”, he said.

He also stated that the TUC was embarking on an exercise to select representative’s at all regional levels to be trained further on Pensions and the SSNIT Scheme as focal persons on social protection issues.

The Eastern Regional Chairman of the TUC, Mr Augustine Michael Owusu expressed his delight at the interaction between SSNIT and TUC and commended the leadership of SSNIT for embarking on the regional educational engagements to ensure that the TUC regional and district leaders are kept abreast with the operations of SSNIT.