Organised labour to hold emergency meeting on SSNIT’s operations next week

Organised labour will convene an emergency meeting next week to demand full-scale investigations into the operations of the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT).

One of its leaders, who is also the General Secretary of the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), Thomas Musah Tanko disclosed this in reaction to a report published by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) on the operations of SSNIT in an exclusive interview with our Labour Affairs Correspondent, Daniel Opoku in Accra on April 26, 2024.

“The time has come for Parliament, civil society groups to rise up and speak against this.

Organised labour will be having an emergency meeting to demand investigations into SSNIT operations,” he revealed.

General Secretary of GNAT, Thomas Musah

Findings by the ILO on SSNIT indicate that by 2036, SSNIT’s pension reserves would be depleted and this could affect payment of benefits to pensioners.

It also showed that SSNIT will have to only depend on returns from its investment to increase the benefits of retirees, while asking workers to contribute more to the pension scheme.

However, Mr Musah Tanko said he was surprised by the findings of the ILO.

He recalled the 2020 Auditor-General’s report which indicated that government owed SSNIT over GHC1.2 billion.

“As of 31st December, 2020, when the Auditor-General slapped the penalty, the money came to over GHC4 billion, why are we surprised that by 2021 the figure has ballooned to over GHC6 billion,” he asked.

He expressed worry that with the current situation at SSNIT, benefits of retirees could be affected.

“One difficulty with SSNIT is that people don’t really have interest, why should somebody be taking 400 cedis in today’s economy, the time has come that we need to know the total indebtedness of SSNIT.

The reason why the tier two is doing well is  because it is in the house of workers, SSNIT is seen as far away from workers,” Mr Tanko stated.

Other unions such as NAGRAT have also expressed concerns about how SSNIT is being managed.

By Daniel Opoku