The Social Security and National Insurance Trust, SSNIT has paid over GH¢ 1.7 billion to more than 200,000 pensioners on the pension payroll as at July 2019.
SSNIT has also reduced pensioners average benefits processing time from 21 days in 2018 to 17 days and registered 106 per cent of its target, leading to a sharp increase in the number of establishments’ contributions from 67,101 to 68,010.
Dr John Ofori-Tenkorang, the Director General of SSNIT, said this in an address at the Trust’s annual operations conference to deliberate on issues affecting on its operations.
The three-day conference, which commenced on Thursday at Cape Coast, will provide the platform for the Trust Executive, department heads, and area and branch managers to discuss topical issues.
They would review performance, proffer solutions and come up with new operational policies to ensure organisational growth.
With the increasing demands for benefits payment, Dr Ofori-Tenkorang said the Trust must give prominence to collecting all monies in arrears to sustain its operations.
This has become necessary due to increasing wage bill, hence the need to adopt innovative strategies to increase contributions while reducing operational cost and other administrative expenses to sustain the Scheme.
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Dr Ofori-Tenkorang said the Trust would no longer be paying the 25 per cent optional lump sum to pensioners from January 2020 because the 10 years transition period for the National Pensions Act, Act 766, ends on Tuesday, December 31, 2019.
“From then, all workers who turn 60 years will have their benefits processed under the National Pensions Act and consequently optional lump sum payment will be done by tier-two trustees.”
