The Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) has launched the 10th edition of its annual Customer Mobile Clinic at Osu in Accra. The 2018 edition of the customer service week which started on Monday will end on Friday, September 28, is aimed at increasing the number of active stakeholders contributing to the Scheme, deepening information dissemination and bringing services closer to stakeholders.
Speaking at the launch, the Deputy Director General of Operations at SSNIT Madam Laurette K. Otchere emphasized that social security is a right hence the need to ensure employers pay contributions on behalf of their workers. “The worker needs to know that they can demand their employer to pay their contributions for them and if the employer doesn’t pay it, they can contact any SSNIT branch and we’ll go and investigate and make sure the employer pays for them. We also have hot-lines where people can call to make complaints,” Madam Otchere, said.
The exercise
The exercise is also aimed at empowering the SSNIT contributor and create awareness among the general public on SSNIT contributions. Themed Wo SSNIT daakye hyƐ wonsa (Your SSNIT future is in your hands), the exercise will see the deployment of SSNIT staff to vantage points to bring the Trust and its services closer to its customers, pensioners and other stakeholders. The week-long program will also serve the Trust the opportunity to resolve complaints, register new members and obtain feedback for policy formulation among other things.
About 65 tents will be mounted at vantage points across the country to undertake activities such as, Checking and Printing of Statement of Account, Biometric Registration, Employer Registration, as well as Benefits Processing Issues. Other services that will be provided at this year’s Customer Mobile Clinic are: Distribution and Validation of Smart Cards, Updating of Nominees, Retirement Advisory Services and General Enquiries about the Business and Operations of SSNIT.
Meanwhile, the Director General of the Scheme, Dr. John Ofori Tenkoran, has disclosed at a customer service mobile clinic and a sensitisation exercise in the Ashanti Region that, SSNIT will soon introduce a system to enable the informal sector subscribers to pay premium via mobile money. He said, “We are trying to launch an informal sector scheme.” Adding that, such a scheme will probably be one “where you can, for example, do your contribution through mobile money, maybe 1 cedi or 2 cedis a day.”
By Francis Ntow