SSNIT Informal sector fund to rely on ICT

THE Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) Informal Sector Fund (SISF) is hoping to take advantage of the high mobile phone penetration and the rising Internet usage in the country to enrol more members onto the fund.
The Managing Director of the fund, Dr Francis Sapara-Grant, said people interested in signing on to the SISF would be given the opportunity to register and pay their contributions into their respective accounts through mobile phones and other Internet powered applications.
In an interview with the Daily Graphic on the state of the fund, the MD added that the fund’s website currently made it possible for members to log on and view their account statements.
“We are also striving to expand our operations to cover the remaining three regions that are not covered yet to give the fund a real national character and make this flexible fund available to all Ghanaians,” Dr Sapara-Grant added.
The fund, which started operations as an independent body in 2008 to address the low patronage by informal sector workers to SSNIT contributions, now has a membership of about 85,000, which the managing director said was still growing by the day.
He said by their estimate, the current SISF membership was “just a tip of the iceberg considering the informal nature of the country’s workforce”.
The sector is estimated to account for over 80 per cent of the country’s working population.
As a result, Dr Sapara-Grant said although the fund had appointed marketing field officers to go round and register members as well as collect their contributions, his outfit was “devising more cost effective methods that can be used to get more people registered.”
And though the fund’s primary target is the informal sector worker, the managing director said, “It has room for formal sector workers and Ghanaians in the Diaspora.”
“Members are registered such that their withdrawals can be paid to them within 48 hours. A member can, however, have access to his or her contributions after five months of contributions,” Dr Sapara-Grant explained.
The passage of the National Pensions Act, 2008 (Act 766) which created the three tier pension scheme has brought in private participation in the sector, thereby opening up the SISF to competition from prospective pension fund managers.
He stated that the opening up of the sector to private participation would help challenge SISF “to be more creative to help sustain the interest in the field.”