Some of the participants. INSET: Dr Ofori Tenkorang
THE SOCIAL Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) spent close to GH¢2.5 billion on benefit payments last year.
The Trust spends over GH¢200 million to fund pension payments to over 200,000 pensioners every month.
Director General of SSNIT Dr Ofori Tenkorang stated this at an educational forum organized by his outfit in collaboration with the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in Takoradi to discuss social security issues, particularly, on pensions and benefit computations.
The forum was also aimed at promoting knowledge of the SSNIT scheme, empowering organized labour as peer educators for the Trust, as well as demystifying some of the issues surrounding benefit computations. He noted that a core mandate of SSNIT was to pay benefits and that such mandate had faithfully been executed over the years. He indicated that pensions were indexed every year to maintain the purchasing power of pensioners.
“The Trust increases the benefits of pensioners through the annual indexation which was started in 1992. This is determined using the average salary growth of active contributions, annual average change in consumer price index and the cost implications of applying various rates of indexation on the fund,” he said.
Dr Ofori-Tenkorang disclosed that there were no myths surrounding benefit computations, and that pensions were a direct reflection of salaries on which contributions were 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,” he explained.
Pension Manager Joseph Poku took participants through how to estimate their pensions. He stated that three factors were considered in the computation, which included the age at which one retired, the average of best three years’ basic salaries on which one contributed and the number of months of contributions.
Deputy Secretary General of TUC Joshua Ansah noted that pensions had been a major concern for workers in the country, adding “that is why we felt it was necessary to bring the top hierarchy of SSNIT to address the concerns of workers.”
He called on every worker in Ghana to take active interest in their social security and retirement planning.
From Emmanuel Opoku, Takoradi