More than 10,000 people have accessed services of the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) at its Mobile Service Week centres across the country, as at September 1, 2021.
Data available to SSNIT indicate that 40 out of the 51 branches of the Trust nationwide recorded this number of people who visited the centres to access the Trust’s services. The exercise ended last Friday, September 3, 2021.
The SSNIT Mobile Service (SMS) Week is an annual exercise wherein staff of the Trust pitch camp at vantage locations across the country to bring its services to the doorsteps of its members and clients. This year’s SSNIT Mobile Service Week was on the theme ‘Retirement Security for the Self –Employed: Join SSNIT Today as a Voluntary Contributor’.
Although this year’s SMS Week focused on creating a favourable platform to enable more informal sector workers to sign onto the SSNIT Scheme, other services provided at the various centres included issuance of Statements of Accounts, SSNIT and NIA numbers merger and Renewal of Pensioner Certificates.
The rest are benefits processing initiation and benefit status verification, employer registration, submission and validation of Contribution Reports, resolution of compliance issues and general enquiries.
The Pension House, Accra Central and Kokomlemle centres had recorded more than 400 visits by Wednesday, September 1, 2021 and some of the remaining centres also recorded between 200 to 300 visits from patrons and members.
Speaking in an interview, the Corporate Affairs Manager of SSNIT, Afua Sarkodie, indicated that the exercise forms part of the Trust’s efforts to constantly engage with its members and the public by focusing on member and client satisfaction.
Informal sector participation
Currently, less than 20,000 members out of over 1.6 million SSNIT contributors are self-employed. As part of efforts to increase informal sector participation in the SSNIT scheme, officials of SSNIT embarked on its Mobile Service Week exercise to provide solutions regarding registrations, contributions and benefits under the Scheme.
Highlighting the steps being taken by SSNIT to rope more self-employed workers into the Scheme, Ms. Sarkodie explained that the Trust will soon begin discussions with the leadership of various trade groups in the informal sector to expand coverage to its workers.
“These discussions are aimed at driving full participation of informal sector workers in the SSNIT Scheme, by registering them to join the Scheme and get benefits upon retirement just like their counterparts in the formal sector,” she explained.
These groups include Ghana Union of Traders Association (GUTA), Ghana Private Road and Transport Union (GPRTU), Ghana Actors Guild and small businesses under the Ghana Enterprises Agency (GEA) – formerly the National Board for Small Scale Industries (NBSSI).
