The Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) presents us with an apt case study about a money-making fund unable to meet its terms of reference and woefully so because of mismanagement occasioned by politicisation, self-interest and lost focus.
Elsewhere in the world, even in Asia, funds and pension entities of this status charged with managing the contributions of workers during active service constitute cash cows from which sensible and lucrative investments originate.
Such investments are informed by prudent study into their viability or otherwise by relevant consultants obsessed with leaving a legacy of making informed recommendations.
In our jurisdiction, the contrary holds and board appointments into SSNIT are done as gratifications from the President or his assigns to party financiers or loyalists. In the end, the investments undertaken by SSNIT hardly meet expectations.
The many ventures veered into by SSNIT such as estate development among others attest to the avoidable failures debited against the Trust; black holes about which public commentaries are rarely ignited.
Pension funds can only yield good returns when those at the helm of such ventures exude the technical wherewithal in running them.
The choice of persons with the germane investment wherewithal as board members of SSNIT with unalloyed commitment to turn things around bereft of greed and selfishness would have definitely yielded positive outcomes. We would have been composing a different commentary underpinned by plaudits and not queries.
The mode of choosing political office holders such as it is done for ministers and appointees can only yield the kind of negative outcomes we are confronted with when extended to the appointment of the headship of an entity such as SSNIT.
In some jurisdictions where things are done differently, such Funds rub shoulders with the Finance Ministry and the local apex banks in terms of financial control and muscle.
It is worrying that in spite of the sorry picture as presented, workers as represented by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) have less say in the taking of major decisions that shape the direction of the management of the huge funds at the disposal of SSNIT. The representation of workers and the muscle of these are merely formalities. Their importance is so infinitesimal that they are hardly heard when decisions are being made.
Until the political hands which control the direction of SSNIT are withdrawn and the Fund allowed to operate from the standpoint of business, the negative picture as it exists will persist.
In some countries, going on pension is a moment of joy, the worker relishing the pleasure of going home to enjoy the respectable pensions originating from their contributions. Not so in Ghana where as a result of the poorly managed funds, going on pension spells grief for the pensioner.
For how long shall the stakeholders such as the Ghanaian workers continue to watch on as the cash cow wobbles in the realm of plenty, even as politicians make fortunes from their sweat?