CONTROLLER AND ACCOUNTANT-GENERAL MEETS KOFORIDUA PENSIONERS (PAGE 31)

Story: A. Kofoya-Tetteh, Koforidua

THE Controller and Accountant-General, Mr Christian Tetteh Sottie, has warned that any worker covered by the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) pension scheme found to have falsified documents to make him or her a beneficiary of Cap 30 would be drastically dealt with.
At the moment, payment of end-of-service benefits under Cap 30 is more enhanced than that of the SSNIT pension scheme.
Mr Sottie, who gave the warning when he interacted with pensioners at Koforidua at the weekend, said it had been the practice of some retired workers under the SSNIT Pension Scheme to falsify their retirement documents to enable them to be put on Cap 30.
  He said the practice was a criminal act and would not be tolerated and that anybody found to have indulged in the act would be handed over to the police for prosecution.
"We have detected such a serious crime and we are now very vigilant and anybody found to have falsified his or her retirement documents to be put on Cap 30 would be promptly arrested and handed over to the police for prosecution," Mr Sottie stated.
Mr Sottie stated that the best way to address pension issues was to contact his outfit or one's employers for redress but not to be on the air waves, adding, "going to the radio stations cannot help, since we are the only people to solve such problems”.
He said the delay in computing one's pension was primarily due to difficulties in knowing one's actual grade at the time of going on retirement and appealed to employers to provide the Controller and Accountant-General's Department (CAGD) with such information on time.
Mr Sottie told the gathering that some unscrupulous workers had allegedly been demanding as high as GH¢200 to handle the files of pensioners and advised anybody who had paid for the processing of pension documents to report to his outfit.
This, he said, would make it possible to identify the perpetrators for disciplinary action to be taken against them.
"Somebody just reported to me that a messenger had demanded GH¢200 to carry his file from one office to an other to be processed but when we decided to give him the money to be given to him as a trap for him to be arrested, the pensioner refused it with the explanation that he did not want to cause somebody's arrest," Mr Sottie said.
He therefore asked pensioners to be bold and report such issues to his outfit for the culprits to be sanctioned.
The National Chairman of the Pensioners Association, Mr E.O. Ashiley, said although payment of the monthly pension was normally done by the middle of the month, some banks could not effect payment on time and advised pensioners having that problem to change their bankers, adding that the association would help pensioners to open accounts, if necessary.
The pensioners, for their part, called for prompt payment of their monthly pension.
They also asked the CAGD to involve them to identify their dead colleagues to remove ghost names from the payroll.