Friday, July 18, 2008

COMPANIES DON'T PAY WORKERS' SSNIT CONTRIBUTIONS (PAGE 29)

THE failure of 120 viable companies in the Tamale metropolis to pay the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) contributions of their workers is said to be impacting negatively on the affected beneficiaries.
Currently, defaulting companies owe SSNIT to the tune of GH¢50,000 in spite of the legal action taken against them by the trust to retrieve the money.
In October last year, 73 defaulting companies owed the SSNIT GH¢67,000.
In view of the worsening situation, the management of the SSNIT recently held a seminar for employers in Tamale on a new computerised system -the Employer Member Account Reconciliation (EMAR). The system involves the monthly reconciliation of employers’ accounts with SSNIT based on the last known payment records.
The Tamale branch Manager, Mr Frank Molbila, explained in an interview that under the new system, “indebtedness of establishments with outstanding contribution reports are estimated based on their last submitted contribution reports”.
He expressed concern about the way some establishments failed to keep good records of their workers’ salaries.
Mr Molbila stressed the need for companies to avoid engaging casual workers for several years without paying their social security contributions.
The SSNIT Area Manager in charge of the three northern regions, Mr Felix Adams, announced that the trust had instituted an age assessment committee to help deal with human errors regarding the correct age of beneficiaries of the scheme.
Some of the participants called on the management of SSNIT to do a “house cleaning exercise” themselves to help check anomalies in the system, including bad record keeping.

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