The Auditor-General has recommended sanctions for some officials of the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) responsible for the loss of $11.79 million.

The loss was from the liquidations of three of the trust’s investments with a total cash outlay of $14.768 million.

The amount is just one of several irregularities at SSNIT uncovered by the Auditor-General in its 2020 report on the Public Accounts of Ghana – public boards, corporations and other statutory institutions.

SSNIT is mandated to invest pension of its members and to make enough returns so they can pay what each member is due when they retire from active service.

The irregularities found by the A-G may jeopeardise the ability of SSNIT.

On the $11.47 million loss, the Auditor General has asked management to investigate the nonperformance of the investment with the aim of ensuring value for money and ensuring that officers whose actions led to the loss are appropriately sanctioned.

“We urged Management to investigate the nonperformance of the investments for all to ensure value for money and ensure that officers whose action led to the loss are appropriately sanctioned for the loss.”

“We further urged Management to ensure that effective feasibility studies are carried out before investing”, the report stressed.

The AG also asked SSNIT management to ensure that effective feasibility studies are carried out before investing.

SSNIT was also found to have failed to retrieve an outstanding loan balance of ¢146.9 million from the Ghana Road Fund as of December 31, 2019.

This was partly due to the Trust’s inability to put in place strict measures to ensure that the Ghana Road Fund issue a letter of authority to the Ghana Commercial Bank and Bank of Ghana to pledge and place a lien on the Road Fund account to recover the monthly installments in line with paragraph 11 of the Loan Agreement.

SSNIT could also not provide the supporting documents for ¢140.1 million debt disclosed in the 2019 trial balance as government of Ghana portion of Student Loan.

The Auditor-General found another bad investment in Bridal Trust. The management of SSNIT were compelled to propose to the Board to write off losses of ¢26.8 million due to the official liquidation of Bridal Trust which could only pay ¢5.4 million out of its accumulated loan of ¢32.3 million.