Mr Kwame Peprah, Chairman of the SSNIT Board addressing the 5th Stakeholders forum held at the La Palm Beach Hotel in Accra.
According to the Trust, the new pension scheme was likely to face challenges such as new rates to be paid by contributors, new qualifying periods and options for workers who are fifty-five or above and that the earlier they were addressed the better for the scheme.
The Chairman of the Board of Trustee of SSNIT, Mr Kwame Peprah, made this known at the fifth annual stakeholders forum of the Trust in Accra yesterday.
The three-tier pension scheme, which will be regulated by the National Pension Regulatory Authority, will now enjoin workers to contribute 18.5 per cent instead of 17.5 per cent as presently paid towards their pension.
Presenting his report on the performance of SSNIT in 2008, Mr Peprah said the total investment portfolio of the Trust as of December, 2008 stood at GH¢2.2 billion, which represents a growth of 32 per cent as against 2007 growth of GH¢1.6 billion.
That, he said, resulted from the considerable increase in gross investment, which grew by 45 per cent from GH¢108.6 million in 2007 to GH¢157.4 million in 2008.
He said over the past five years, the SSNIT investment portfolio had grown by more than 147 per cent from GH¢877.56 million in 2003 to GH¢2,163.9 in 2008, showing a compound annual growth rate of 25.3 per cent.
According to Mr Peprah, "notwithstanding this commendable performance in the investment activities of the Trust, we also note that some of SSNIT's investment assets have not performed as expected".
Those investments, he said, were made in distressed unlisted companies in various sectors of the economy, adding that the board had endorsed management's decision to explore various exit strategies from such investments to enhance the financial health of the scheme in the years ahead.
As part of its outlook for 2009, the Director-General of SSNIT, Mr Kwasi A. Boatin, said the Trust would aggressively re-enter the real estate market through joint venture partnership or on its own to contribute significantly in that sector of the economy.
He said SSNIT had also introduced an Informal Sector Fund after a three-year pilot, and that the scheme was a major initiative to extend social security coverage to the vast majority of the working population to serve as protection schemes for workers in the informal sector.
He said the economic outlook for 2009 was generally quite difficult in view of the challenges exacerbated by the impact of global economic downturn.
However, Mr Boatin said notwithstanding the challenges, SSNIT intended to manage its investment portfolio prudently to ensure that the overall portfolio earned, at least, its targeted returns.
On the Students Loan Scheme, he said "we are determined to recover all outstanding loans through legally acceptable means, including the court process".
According to him, students, both those in school and past ones, owed the Trust a total of GH¢196.4 million as of December, 2008.
