The Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) says it is targeting to enroll about one million self-employed people onto the scheme by the year 2024.
Director-General of SSNIT, Dr John Ofori-Tenkorang, made this known while addressing the media at a conference held for operations and benefits officers of the scheme in Koforidua last week Wednesday.
According to Mr Ofori-Tenkorang, this year alone, the number of self-employed people who have voluntarily joined the scheme are 18,000. He said this was achieved through two vigorous sensitisation exercises that his outfit embarked on.
He noted that the first phase of the exercise registered 14, 000 people while the second phase, which took place just three months ago added 4,000 more people to the scheme and was very hopeful that the 1million target can be achieved within the next two years.
“When we started this year, doing stakeholder engagements to sensitise the self-employed to join SSNIT, we had only about 14,000 people who are self-employed and who have voluntarily come to join SSNIT …Right now within three months of doing the sensitization we have jumped from 14,000- 18,000.
“It is our hope that within the next year or two, we should be able to get about a million self employed people signed unto the scheme,” the SSNIT MD said.
Addressing the media on the need for people to join the scheme, Mr Ofori-Tenkorang noted that the scheme contributes significantly to Ghana’s economy through the monies it pays to retirees and other clients.
He noted that as of October 2022, the scheme had paid a whopping GH¢3.4bn which are mainly pension payments, survivors benefits and lump sums. He projected that the scheme would pay about GH¢4bn by the close of the year.
He said this amount constitutes a significant contribution to the economy and, therefore, touted the good work the scheme is doing and called on those who have not registered with the scheme yet to do so.
“As you can see, this is a significant amount of money which get pumped into the Ghanaian economy to help pensioners survive and this shows you how systemic and how important our organisation is and that we should take the SSNIT business very serious.”
Another reason he gave as to why people should register with the scheme is that it would ensure that people enjoy while they are on pension because all monies due them will be paid.
“And for those people who are working in Ghana today, who haven’t joined SSNIT, they should know that SSNIT is there to pay and it will serve them very well when they come and join us,” Mr Ofori-Tenkorang noted.
Update on Electronic Payment Platform
It would be recalled that some two months ago, SSNIT rolled out an electronic payment platform to enable their clients pay their contributions through Mobile Money and also to enable employers who wished to pay their workers contribution online to do so.
Updating the media on its operations so far, Mr Ofori-Tenkorang said there has been significant uptake on the platform.
“We believe that in the next year or so we will get significant amount of our inflows migrating from the normal channels which is a bit conversant to the very easy electronic channel which we have made available.
“I also believe that this channel that we have opened up will also come in very very handy, when we get the self employed people to join SSNIT and pay without leaving their place of work. So, so far so good,” Mr Ofori-Tenkorang observed.
Despite these gains, the DG indicated that there is more that can be done to improve the system and prayed for the best in the years ahead.
