Chief Executive Officer of the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT), John Ofori-Tenkorang, has revealed that measures are being taken to retrieve monies locked up in capital investments.

According to him, the Trust was in the process of retrieving some of the investments and loans granted before he took office.

That notwithstanding, his outfit is working assiduously to retrieve monies from defaulters.

“We are taking the necessary steps to get the collateral and basically swap assets…and in other places where there is no asset for us to take, [we] engage the defaulters to actually pay. We are working on it… I can assure you that we have taken some steps to get some of these monies back”.

Mr. Tenkorang believes that some changes in the housing sector have made it difficult to sell the housing units. He further averred that the only alternative is by engaging in swapping of some completed properties. This will help to pay back the loan. He further revealed that this will help SSNIT get value for money.

“But because of the way the market has become soft, they have not been able to sell it… In addition to being an equity partner, SSNIT also lent money into it. So, what we decided to do was that in order to reduce the indebtedness; we are going to do a swap where they are going to have to give us the completed properties in exchange for amortization of the loan. So, we went to the board and the board approved for us to do an asset swap,”

Auditor General’s report reveals SSNIT’s locked up funds

The Auditor General’s report has revealed that SSNIT has about USD 185 million locked up in a housing project in the Greater Accra Region.

The report states that SSNIT had invested a large sum of money into a housing project at two locations- Klagon and Sakumono. However, the investment has seemingly not yielded any substantial returns. The halted project is being managed by RSS. The company is a Joint Venture Company belonging to SSNIT and RegimanuelGray.

“In spite of the provision of Section 91(1) of the PFM Act 2016, Management of SSNIT sunk a cedi equivalent of US$185,250,000.00 in a housing Project at Klagon and Sakumono”.

According to the report out of the 32 completed housing units, only two had been sold. Also, it stated that none of the nine flats completed blocks at Klagon and Sakumono had been sold.

“The inability to anticipate the increased supply of houses in the housing market, coupled with wrong estimation of the project cost resulted in this state of affairs”.

SSNIT urged to be circumspect in future investments

The Auditor-General’s report also suggested that SSNIT did not do due diligence when it performed the investment. It further averred that wrong estimation of the project cost resulted in the current state of affairs.

The report concluded on the matter by asking SSNIT to set up proper ways of looking at projects of the same nature going forward.

“We urge the Board to consider RSS’s proposal to rent the houses to reduce the losses on the investment. We further recommended to the Trust to institute an effective project evaluation process in investments of similar nature.”