Business News of Tuesday, 30 March 2021

Source: 3news.com

SSNIT mess in AG’s report not my creation – SSNIT Boss

Director-General of SSNIT, Dr John Ofori -Tenkorang Director-General of SSNIT, Dr John Ofori -Tenkorang

The Director-General of the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT), Dr John Ofori-Tenkorang, has indicated that the findings in the Auditor General’s report against SSNIT were not his doing.

He said he inherited all the issues that have come out in the report.

Dr Ofori-Tenkorang told Dzifa Bampoh on the First Take programme on 3FM Tuesday, March 30 that steps have been taken by his leadership to address all the concerns that have been raised in the report.

He assured contributors and pensioners that their investments are in safe hands.

There are examples of rents not collected from its properties, bond purchase that were not recovered, money on housing projects which has been left hanging.

The report also noted that nine out of 21 agent banks of SSNIT failed to remit a total of about GH¢26.3 million cedis of pension contribution collections to the designated account at the Bank of Ghana as of the end of the 2017 and 2018 financial years respectively.

The Auditor General Report recommended to the management of SSNIT to ensure that the banks transfer the unpaid balances to the SSNIT account at the Bank of Ghana without further delay.

It again recommended to the SSNIT management to re-compute the penalty and recover same from the agent banks and inform its office for verification, failure which the authorizing and approving officers of these contracts shall be held liable.

The Director-General, Dr Ofori-Tenkorang said he takes responsibility for these liabilities although he did not cause them.

“My general response is first, to assure contributors and pensioners that their moneys are in good hands."

“But, I also want to take the opportunity to put in context and say that a lot of the things that are being implied are things that happened before I became Director-General and a lot of them have been put into investment."

“These were investment that were done years before I became the Director-General but I am now in the seat, I inherited it and I own it. We have taken the steps necessary to make sure that we are making money."

“I will like to lay the foundation that we are on top of these issues even though many of them are legacy issues, we are fully engaged, a lot of them have been resolved and we can go through the details,” he said.