The reported mismanagement of the Social Security and National Security Trust (SSNIT) has jeopardized the pension funds of Ghanaian workers.
According to the Ghana Federation of Labour (GFL), the situation poses a national security and economic threat to Ghanaian workers because the Trust has become unsustainable.
Abraham Koomson, General Secretary of the GFL, in an interview with ADR Daily, called for swift action from organised labour on the matter.
We cannot sit down and watch SSNIT deteriorate further. We the workers are the ones who would be affected most,” he said.
He said the Federation had proposed an emergency meeting of organised labour to fashion out the way forward in getting the government to act, adding that “we have written to the Trade Union Congress and all other members of organised labour, in this regard about the meeting.”
Mr Koomson was optimistic that pressure from organised labour would force the government to take the necessary remedial measures to ensure efficient management of the pension funds under the Trust.
SSNIT is being investigated by the Economic and Organized Crime Office (EOCO) for spending $72 million to procure and install an Operational Business Suite (OBS) in a bid to digitise its operations.
The Federation, in an earlier statement, described this software scandal as only “one of the symptoms of the malaise plaguing SSNIT and rendering the scheme unsustainable.”
The SSNIT Board has contracted PricewaterhouseCoopers to conduct an audit into the bloated OBS contract.
The GFL also raised concerns about some diaries being procured by SSNIT, describing such expenses as “profligate expenditure” and far from SSNIT’s mandate.
The GFL leadership said it shudders at the consequences of the imminent collapse of the scheme, as some industry watchers have warned, and it is “mindful of the severe financial and social crises.”
The GFL noted that “even though the management has instituted a forensic audit into SSNIT operations, we observe with disquiet, evidence of profligate expenditure and opulence being displayed again.”
The Federation cited the advertisement by SSNIT, published in the Ghanaian Times of June 16, 2017, inviting tenders for the supply of luxury executive diaries, luxury desk diaries, luxury slim pocket diaries, among others, for the year 2018, as an example of the profligacy.
By Nii Adotey/adrdaily.com
