Ghana Card to improve pension penetration, says SSNIT
Director-General of the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT), Dr John Ofori-Tenkorang, has indicated that the Ghana Card is going to improve pension penetration in the country as well as enhance the services of SSNIT.
He noted that the introduction and nature of the Ghana card will make it easy for the enrolment of people into the pension scheme as the required data on them would be readily available.
He described the Ghana Card as a game changer, stressing on the fact that the Card will make work easier for them.
“The Ghana Card, for me, is going to be a game-changer. It’s going to be a game-changer because you see previously when you sign somebody onto SSNIT, they have to take their biometric, you have to collect all their personal data, as well as the work-related data. Thank God through the Ghana card all this information or I say most of them have been provided to the National Identification Authority.”
“So when I come to you and I convince you that you have to join and you decide to join, all you have to do is to give me your Ghana card. I swipe it and immediately I have all the information on you, Your telephone number, your email address if any. How old you are, your date of birth and all that stuff and if we need to add any additional information, it’ll be minimal information. And then now we are able to also identify you biometrically because you have the Ghana Card, we don’t need to take a new set of fingerprints so that makes it easy.” He added.
Mr Tenkorang, further pointed out efforts being made by his outfit in making payments of contributions to SSNIT convenient for contributors.
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‘’The other thing that I think is gonna make it easy for us, is the mode of payment that we are going to roll out. One of them is going to be payments through mobile money. When your SIM cards are linked to your Ghana cards and so on and so forth. All these things become seamless and we have come up with a back end platform that allows payments to be made through momo to integrate directly into our systems,’’ he stated.
Meanwhile, a recent data from the Ghana Statistical Service’s Population and Housing Census (PHC) revealed that out of 10.8 million of the population who are workers, just about 1.7 million workers are covered by SSNIT.
A situation many have expressed concerns over while calling on authorities to put in the required effort to close the gap.
Meanwhile, the Ghana Card, President Akufo-Addo has said, has finally been integrated into the everyday life of Ghanaians as a cradle-to-grave necessity.
He noted that the Ghana Card initiative has largely been made successful through the use of technology and the digitization of the economy.
“Indeed, Mr. Speaker, we are expecting greater things from the greater use of technology and the digitalization of our economy as a whole. I am happy to report that the National Identification Card, the Ghana Card, has finally been integrated into our everyday lives as a cradle-to-grave necessity,’’ said the President while delivering the State of the Nations Address (SONA).
