Dr Kwame Addo Kufuor (left) shakes hands with Michael Asiedu-Antwi, a partner at PWC after the press conference
The reconstituted board of the Social Security & National Insurance Trust (SSNIT), led by Dr Kwame Addo Kufuor, a former Defence Minister, has engaged the services of PriceWaterHouseCoopers (PWC), an international audit firm, to undertake a comprehensive review of the Trust for the period as at 31st March, this year.
The board chairman, who disclosed this to journalists yesterday in Accra at a press conference, said the move has become urgent because SSNIT, over the years, has been bedeviled with financial irregularities, improper management practices, high management costs and imprudent investments which have drained resources of the Trust.
“SSNIT has failed to live up to expectation because of these negative factors. But through the efforts of the new board and the management over the last few months, the Trust is beginning to show signs of modest recovery.”
In its quest to acquire a new hardware/software system for improved efficiency, SSNIT’s immediate past board spent $66 million on its Operational Business Suite (OBS) project.
It is also said to have supervised indebtedness to government employees to the tune of GH¢470 million while in the case of the private sector, the amount is still being computed.
Some five directors of the Trust are currently being investigated by the Economic & Organised Crime Office (EOCO) in connection with the anomalies.
Fifteen others are to serve as witnesses in the ongoing investigations.
Audit period
According to Dr Addo Kufuor, the review by PWC would take two months and cover four main areas namely, financial management, risk management, information technology management and human resources management.
Four separate teams from PWC would each work on a selected area over the two-month period and give its report.
“The assessment will review the financial records and state of affairs of SSNIT for the period as at 31st March, 2017. The purpose of this review is to ascertain whether transactions conducted conform with established procedures and accepted standards, and also to ascertain the true financial position of the Trust.”
It will also conduct an audit of the IT systems in use by the Trust to identify and document gaps in the SSNIT IT system in view of the large expenditure on a new operating system.
Furthermore, PWC has been tasked to assess the internal control and financial management systems to identify any weaknesses and make recommendations based on best practice and also review human resources functions and comment on the adequacy of policies and systems for recruitment, training, performance management and compensation.
Newly introduced directives
Director-General, Dr. John Ofori Tenkorang, in a remark, said he was happy that the new management had already put in place strategies to build public confidence in the institution.
He cited proper staff identification, staff reporting to work on time and remaining at post to deliver services to their clients, among others, as some of the improvements.
He also indicated that management had put tighter measures in place to ensure cost control and revenue generation as processes.
Board’s expectation
The new board and management said the findings and recommendations of PWC will help the Trust to know the ground truth, improve income security of the Ghanaian worker, increase coverage of the Trust, especially the informal sector, including cocoa farmers.
It is also to reduce administrative costs and ensure good returns on investment, among others.
By Samuel Boadi & Solomon Ofori