34 EMPLOYERS OWE GOASE SSNIT GH¢17,343.71 (PAGE 40)

THE administration of social security was introduced in the country about 43 years ago, to be precise, July 1, 1965.
Before 1972, the administration of the scheme was entrusted to the then Department of Pensions and the State Insurance Company.
However, in 1972, with the passing of NRC decree 127, the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNT) was established to administer the National Security Scheme.
All this while, SSNIT was operating what was called the “Provident Fund Scheme,” which later on became the SSNIT Pension Scheme. Since the passage of PNDC Law 247 in 1991, the membership of the scheme has been increasing steadily year after year.
As the largest non-financial institution in the country with nearly 900,000 enrolment and over 84,248 pensioners, there is the urgent need to strive for efficiency in the delivery services, taking into consideration customer satisfaction as the hallmark.
As a human institution, SSNIT is confronted with a number of challenges. Some of the problems have to do with the failure or refusal of some employers to register with SSNIT or allow their employees to be covered under the scheme, the failure on the part of some employers to declare actual salaries of their staff, invalid social security transactions resulting from inaccurate financial data as well as the failure on the part of some employers to pay workers’ contributions promptly and the settlement of arrears or indebtedness, resulting in uncontrollable increase in employer indebtedness.
It must be stressed that even though much improvement has been recorded over the years in the service delivery and other operational activities of SSNIT, the increasing rate of employer indebtedness remains a bigger challenge to the scheme.
As of May, this year, approximately 8,600 employers were owing SSNIT a whopping GH¢61,901,475.82
With a vision of becoming a world class financial institution dedicated to the provision of economic security of the Ghanaian worker, it is imperative that employers are reminded of their obligations under the scheme to make the vision a reality since the complementary effort of both SSNIT and employers is crucial.
All over the world, institutional policies and programmes are being tailored, especially in service delivery institutions so as to meet the desired needs and expectations of customers to ensure their survival and continuous stay in the industry.
Really, SSNIT is not being left behind in this direction. For this reason, its customers, both employers and employees, need to be informed about the new policies and programmes, which are all geared towards achieving the best quality service within the shortest possible time.
In this regard, the institution has streamlined some core functions to provide quality service to meet the expectation of its customers. They include the registration of employers and employees, collection of monthly contributions, keeping of records of members, managing the funds of the scheme and processing and paying benefits promptly.
A significant innovation of its operation is the introduction of the Employer Member Account Reconciliation (EMAR) system in the country, under which SSNIT is able to ascertain the indebtedness of employers through the monthly billing system and would, therefore issue bills to the indebted employers to pay the contributions of their employees.
Again, under the EMAR, the grand summary of total employer indebtedness based on inspections, up-to-date and the last known contribution reports received from employers will be calculated and a monthly bills issued to prevent the mounting of debts
At a recent seminar at Goaso in the Brong Ahafo Region for employers on the EMAR, the acting Area Manager of SSNIT, Mr Amos Donkor, disclosed that the total outstanding amount owed to SSNIT by 34 employers of the Goaso branch alone as of December 2007 was GH¢17,343.71.
The theme for the seminar was: ‘‘The Role of Employers under the SSNIT EMAR.”
According to Mr Donkor, who is also the Regional Accountant of SSNIT, some of the reasons which accounted for employer indebtedness was that they did not attach to the payment of social security contributions.
According to him, some of the employers appeared to give priority to other financial commitments rather than the payment of contributions while some of them delayed in the payment, thus attracting penalties for delayed payments.
Some of them, he said, made under payments and under declare their labour force, which when detected often, led to employer indebtedness, stressing that some of them were recalcitrant and simply refused to pay their contributions, even when they were notified of their indebtedness.
Again, Mr Donkor noted that, some indebted employers were elusive and difficult for SSNIT to promptly notify them of how much they owed the company while others made irregular payments leading to arrears of contributions.
He pointed out that employer indebtedness had some serious effects on the social security scheme, explaining that the contributions were used to defray costs incurred in the administration of the scheme such as staff recruitment and other staff costs, procurement of vital logistics and the acquisition of property and other fixed assets.
The acting area manager stated that SSNIT had taken measures to deal with employer indebtedness, which would include the publication in the national newspapers of the names of indebted employers from time to time in the media to get them to pay.
He, therefore, appealed to employers to do everything possible to pay up or come for negotiations to prevent their names from being published since that could lead to embarrassment.
The Goaso SSNIT Branch Manager, Mr Victor Agbenu, explained that the EMAR would help determine total employer indebtedness at any given time, determine accurately arrears retrievals in any given month and would also lead to a reduction in employer’s indebtedness.
He, however, admitted that so much time would be required for printing bills on a monthly basis and the frequent reconciliation with employer records, an increase in administrative cost by the frequent generation of reports, printing and distribution of bills and that a lot of efforts would be required to carry out data cleaning activities effectively.
A Public Relations Officer (PRO) of SSNIT, Mr Eugene Boakye, advised employers to ensure that all their workers were registered with valid social security or reference numbers.
He added that the total number of employees declared to SSNIT should reflect the actual number of employees the employers had on their payrolls.