Dr. John Ofori-Tenkorang, the Director-General of Social Security and Insurance Trust (SSNIT) has urged Ghanaians to join the scheme to reduce old age poverty and avert being beggars and burden to families in order to eke out a decent livelihood.
He explained that SSNIT is not meant for only the formal sector workers but also for informal sector workers and thus prompted the TUC to open its doors for SSNIT to organise various informal sector workers and educate them on the new programme, for them to get the chance to invest their incomes with SSNIT.
Dr. Ofori-Tenkorang was speaking at the 2023 Social Security and Insurance Trust (SSNIT) and Trade Union Congress (TUC) Regional SEED forum, under the theme: “Sign up for Self Employment Enrollment Drive (SEED) from SSNIT is your future, take it personal”.
According to him, a lot of progress has been made since the sensitisation programme for the public at the regional level began, and stressed that SSNIT is not meant for only the formal workers, but the informal sector workers can also join and benefit.
He said the membership from the self employed includes GPRTU, Beauticians and Hairdressers, Mechanics, Petty Traders and Business owners, who have increased from 14,000 to 57,000 as compared to the 0.8% covered by the scheme previously, showing a tremendous growth that guarantees a brighter future for the membership.
He stressed that one’s future depended on buying medicine, what to eat and wear, hence the future must be well planned, since one’s children could disappoint, besides outliving one’s savings or when one’s health fails while working.
According to him, the statistics show that there are 11.5 million in the labour force in Ghana and 9.9 million are employed, 6.7 million are self employed while 3.1 million are between the ages of 15 and 45, representing 3.2 million who are white collar job workers, 600,000 self employed persons in formal pension scheme protection.
He indicated that formal and informal sector workers including self employed can join the scheme with the minimum age 15 years and maximum age of 45 years.
