Protecting pension scheme

The Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) has taken a proactive step to deactivate 21,337 pensioners from its database.

The move has made the trust save the country some GH¢312.27 million.

The savings, it said, followed the inability of what it described as unscrupulous people to renew the life certificates necessary for the collection of pensions from April 2018 to June this year.

The affected pensioners, who have been presumed not to be alive, failed to go to SSNIT offices across the country to renew their pension certificates within the five-year period, thereby preventing the national pension fund from paying any pensions to them.

This revelation came up when the Director-General of SSNIT, Dr John Ofori-Tenkorang, led other management members of the trust to speak to the audited accounts of SSNIT before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament last week.

In view of the huge losses the trust had incurred in the past due to fraudulent activities by beneficiaries or next of kins of some deceased members on the SSNIT scheme, we see the move by the trust as a positive one.

Particularly at a time when the trust is under financial pressure, this action by its management is apt because of the positive impact on the entire purse belonging to the one million plus contributors.

The issue of forgery in these instances is simply unacceptable because it can hurt the entire scheme, which has for a long time become a model for many African countries which visit SSNIT to understudy how the whole scheme is managed.

By way of tracking pensioners, we are aware that at the age of 72 or 75 years, pensioners are deemed to have exhausted their guaranteed pension entitlements and, therefore, if they pass away, it is required that all payments to them cease.

That was the practice prior to 2018 when pensioners were supposed to go to SSNIT and prove that they were alive every three years for their details to be captured into the trust’s existing pension administration system.

In 2018, the trust changed the frequency to one year as part of a grand move to minimise the risk that somebody could have passed away and yet would be paid for three years until the next renewal date. That has changed completely because SSNIT has developed a system to track these pensioners and make sure that the renewals are done.

As a result of the new format, once the renewals are not done, the deactivation of pensioners is carried out because they will be presumed to have expired until they resurrect, at which point they will be restored for the payment to resume.

Another development we find intriguing and deserving of commendation is SSNIT’s appeal to Ghanaians who know pensioners who may be incapacitated and cannot go and verify themselves at SSNIT offices to call for support. This is to ensure that no one who is rightfully on the scheme is denied his or her due.

What we believe all Ghanaians and contributors to the scheme must appreciate is the fact that the scheme is well intended and so its funds should not be allowed to go down the drain when something concrete can be done to save them.

Pensions are for a good cause because they help those not in active service to be guaranteed a source of income until they pass on.

Against this background, we must all contribute our quota by helping the management of SSNIT to work at all times to prevent unscrupulous people from taking undue advantage of the system to milk the scheme.

It is the fervent hope of the Daily Graphic that the management of the SSNIT pension scheme will not rest on its laurels but continuously develop systems that will ensure that the names of more inactive members are deleted, while the loopholes are tightened constantly to prevent fraudsters from getting into the system at all cost to loot the scheme dry.

We take this opportunity to prevail on all, particularly those in the informal sector and not registered with the SSNIT pension scheme, to do so to guarantee themselves a better future.