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Some officials of SSNIT attending to some customers during the launch of the SSNIT Customer Service Mobile Clinic at the Oxford Street at Osu in Accra. Picture: EBOW HANSON
Some officials of SSNIT attending to some customers during the launch of the SSNIT Customer Service Mobile Clinic at the Oxford Street at Osu in Accra. Picture: EBOW HANSON

SSNIT holds customer clinic to engage contributors

The Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) has begun a five-day customer clinic aimed at improving engagement with contributors, resolving complaints and registering new members.

The mobile customer clinic, which would be pitched in 66 locations across the country, is expected to facilitate the update of the company’s data and gather feedback for policy formulation among other things.

At the launch of the exercise in Accra yesterday, the Deputy Director-General in charge of Benefits and Operations of SSNIT, Mrs Laurette Korkor Otchere, urged workers to see their SSNIT contribution as their social insurance for the future.

“Members should check their statements, ensure their employers make the required contributions payments on their behalf and blow the whistle on non-compliant employers”, she urged.

Citing the 2015 Ghana Statistical Service Labour Force Report, Mrs Otchere said 20 per cent of the total population are workers in the formal sector and make up 1,854,187.

Out of the number, she said about 1.47 million were enrolled on the SSNIT scheme.

“This means that there are more formal-sector workers to be covered, as currently approximately 79.4 per cent are on the SSNIT Scheme. Indeed, as the National Social Security Trust, we must find ingenious ways of ensuring that all workers, including those in the informal sector, who make up about 80 per cent of the total working population, also have social security coverage,” she said.

Improvement

In recent times, Mrs Otchere said SSNIT had made significant improvement in the processing time for payment of pensions.

In August, she said the company processed the highest number of new pension applications of 2,928 with the least average processing time of about 19 days than the previous months.

She explained that reducing the processing time of applications ensured that the prospective pensioner would not experience “a gap” in the flow of income when he or she retires and “this would inure to the benefit of the pensioner and give credence to the Trust’s goal of building a customer centre Institution”.

Smooth retirement

The customer mobile clinic began seven years ago after it was launched in Accra on October 18, 2011 and has since been held annually.

During the exercise, SSNIT staff pitch tents in densely populated areas or places with high pedestrian traffic where people could engage the SSNIT officers on updating their beneficiaries, having their lost cards replaced and request for statement of accounts.

This year’s exercise is on the theme: Wo SSNIT Daakye hye wonsa, an expression in the Twi language which literally means “Your Future with SSNIT is in your hands.”

In a welcome address, the Customer Experience Manager of SSNIT, Mrs Victoria Gifty Abaidoo, said since 2011 the Trust had showcased excellent service through the mobile clinics.

She said the objective was to empower contributors, saying, “we believe that an empowered contributor can go through a smooth retirement journey to ensure a comfortable retirement.”

This year, she said visitors to the clinic would receive education on investment savings and healthy living to ensure a comfortable retirement.

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