SSNIT working on legislation to address pension computation concerns

The Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) has denied allegations that it is cheating contributors out of their benefits based on the scheme’s alleged flawed computation system.

A committee of the Trade Unions Congress reported that SSNIT misinterprets what constitutes annual salary, early retirement reduction factor and annuity factor on lump sum which ultimately affects the contributor.

Though SSNIT admits that there may indeed be a fundamental flaw with the legal regime on pensions, it maintains that the scheme is not cheating contributors.

The scheme is, however, putting together legislation to clarify alleged ambiguities in its computation regime.

The Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations has also started consultations in a bid to address organised labour’s concerns over SSNIT’s methodology for computing pension funds.

Director-General of SSNIT, Dr. John Ofori Tenkorang at a media engagement admitted to Citi News that there were gaps in the drafting of the law “which lend themselves to various forms of interpretation.”

“Both parties have acknowledged that and have embarked on a process to correct these and it will probably end up in some list of amendments that we would seek to be legislated so that it governs the way we do things,” he explained.

Both parties submitted their positions to the National Pensions Regulatory Authority (NPRA) and Dr. Tenkorang said they “have been able to resolve a great part of the issues.”

SSNIT recently increased the benefits of pensioners by 11 percent.

From January 8, the new minimum monthly pension was GHS300 cedis, which was said to compare favourably with the national daily minimum wage which is GHS287.55.

The government is developing a road map to unify all pension schemes in the country by 2021.

–

Source: citinewsroom