The Deputy Director-General of SSNIT in charge of Operations and Benefits, Laurette Korkor Otchere, has disclosed that processing time of old age pension by members and clients of the Trust, has been reduced from 22 days in 2018 to 17 days in 2019.
Mrs Otchere made this revelation when she led a three- member management team to interact with staff on a tour of the Tamale Area of the Trust which comprises Yendi, Tamale, Gambaga, Bolgatanga, Bawku and Wa Branches.
“Currently contributors who do not qualify to receive monthly pensions are paid a refund of their contributions with the accrued interest and these lump sum benefits are processed within nine (9) days.”
She commended the staff and encouraged them to work towards achieving 100 per cent accuracy rate in the computation of benefits and to build on the successes SSNIT has chalked so far.
Mrs Otchere said the Trust was determined to ensure that its integrity and quality assurance was data-driven, since data is key to its operations.
The Deputy Director-General mentioned that the operations division has been able to achieve 1.5 million mark in member registration and urged staff to put in more effort to increase it to 1.8 million this year.
“The Operations/Benefits Division performed creditably in 2018 and this saw the Trust attain a compliance rate of 82% in 2018 as against 52% the previous year. The active contributor-pensioner ratio has also been increased from 7:1 to 8:1,” she added.
She also indicated that the Division was targeting 10:1 ratio this year.
Mrs Otchere said management has deployed some practical initiatives, this she indicated contributed to the achievements of the compliance department of the Trust to increase contribution collection such as mass inspections, registration and prosecution exercises which have come to stay.
“We need to ensure we all play our part in making sure that employers comply with their obligations under the National Pensions Act, 2008. Act 766.”
“This year we have issued 2,906 summons and have retrieved over Ghs4, 541,265 and we hope to put in more effort to exceed these figures by the end of 2019.”
She assured the staff that continuous development programmes would be organised for them to equip them with the requisite knowledge in emerging trends in social security administration.
The Deputy Director-General was accompanied by the General Manager, Operations, Mr Kingsley Agyei-Manu and the Acting Operations Coordinator, Adomako Mensah.