Over 13,000 pensioners risk losing pension benefits, SSNIT warns

On July 13, 2021, 2:09 PM

The Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) has warned that 13,451 pensioners risk losing their pension benefit, should they fail to complete or renew their pensioner certificates.

The pensioners that would be affected by a deletion of names from the SSNIT payroll effective September 2021 are individuals aged 72 and above.

The move, according to SSNIT, is to ensure payments are made to the right persons.

It added that the accounts of such pensioners would only be reactivated when they renew their pensioner certificates.

According to the trust, there are currently 13,451 pensioners, 72 years and above, who receive a monthly pension but are yet to complete or renew their pensioner certificates.

SSNIT has therefore urged such persons to visit the nearest SSNIT to renew or complete their pensioner certificates to avoid losing their pension benefits by the end of August 30, 2021.

It added that those with mobility challenges could contact SSNIT to schedule a home visit for the completion or renewal of the pensioner certificates.

The caution was contained in a statement issued by SSNIT on Monday, July 12, 2021.

“Pensioners visiting a SSNIT office for the Pensioner Certificate renewal are strongly encouraged to carry along their Ghana Cards to have their SSNIT and NIA numbers merged if they have not done so already,” a statement on the trust’s website said.

Although SSNIT has been deleting names of pensioners aged 72 and above who fail to complete or renew their Pensioner Certificates since 2018, it halted the exercise in March 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

SSNIT pensioner certificate

Pensioner certificates are issued to pensioners aged 72 who retired under PNDCL 247 and for 75-year-olds who retired under Act 766. The certificate is renewed annually.

This is a mechanism put in place by SSNIT to ensure that pension is paid to only retirees who are alive.

Pensioners who fail to renew their pensioner certificates will be deemed to be deceased and their names consequently deleted from the pensioners’ payroll.

This year SSNIT claimed to have saved about GHC144 million from the deactivation of accounts of 11,478 pensioners since 2018, by deleting ghost names.

In June 2021 alone, the SSNIT pension scheme paid 231,316 pensioners over GHC250 million.

The highest-paid pensioner receives GHC129,979 each month, while the lowest-earning pensioner is paid GHC300.00.

In December last year, the outfit announced that it had saved the country GH¢130 million in three years through the cleaning of the pensioner’s payroll.

The Director-General of the trust, Dr John Ofori-Tenkorang, explained that SSNIT saved the country such an amount of money through the deletion of ‘ghost names’ from its payroll.

“This exercise alone has saved us about GHC130 million since we started three years ago. This is money that we would have been paying to illegitimate people,” he stated.

Story By Francis Ntow