SSNIT drags 4,310 employers to court

A total of 4,310 criminal cases are pending in court against employers for various offenses as at June 2019.

The affected employers either failed to register their establishments or workers or failed to submit contribution reports or employers' records.

Additional they might have failed to pay contributions and associated penalties as at the end of the first half of the year.

The Director-General of the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) Dr John Ofori-Tenkorang stated this at a breakfast meeting with some employers Friday in Accra.

He reminded employers and businesses that failure on the part of employers to pay the social security of their employees constituted a crime.

Dr Ofori-Tenkorang said for instance that employers in the private sector owed SSNIT GHc63.67 million as at the end of June this year.

He said the SSNIT did not take delight in prosecuting employers, "but accrued debts must be collected.

"If we fail to collect these debts, it does not absolve us of our responsibility to and obligations to the worker," Dr Ofori-Tenkorang insisted.

He said SSNIT understood that businesses "go through hard times and that is we engage employers who might for one reason or the other delay in complying."

"So, when employers default and we show up with that demand notice, there is a 30-day grace period within which you can pay up or negotiate mutually beneficial terms of settlement.

"However, we are sometimes compelled to take legal action against recalcitrant employers because as I said, the law places an obligation on us to pay benefits to workers and or their dependents," he said.