The Board Chair of the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT), Elizabeth Ohene, has clarified that neither the President nor the government was involved in the decision to sell 60% shares of SSNIT hotels.
In her weekly column published in the state-owned newspaper, Daily Graphic, Miss Ohene expressed surprise over claims by the North Tongu MP, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa suggesting that President Akufo-Addo and his government were involved in the process.
“I am at a total loss to understand how the President and the government got into this. Mr Okudzeto Ablakwa appears to know something I don’t,” parts of her article read.
On Tuesday, June 18, Mr Ablakwa, led a protest against the intended sale of 60% stake in four SSNIT-owned hotels to a hotel owned by the Minister of Food and Agriculture, Bryan Acheampong.
This was after he had petitioned the Commission for Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) to probe the transaction.
The NDC MP stated that the protest was aimed at compelling the president to prevent the sale of these hotels.
But breaking her silence on the matter, Miss Ohene said the SSNIT Board of Trustees operated independently and did not seek permission from or inform the President or any government minister regarding their decision to seek a strategic investor for the hotels.
“The Board of Trustees certainly did not go to get permission or even inform the President of the Republic or any Minister about the decision to seek a strategic investor to take a stake in the hotels,” she wrote.
She continued, “The Board did not need such permission, was not obliged to inform the government, and did not do so. I have seen no evidence in the records of past boards going to the government or the President to get permission to make an investment decision.”
She underscored that the SSNIT Act does not mandate government involvement in such decisions adding that “I had thought it was in everyone’s interest that the pension fund be kept away from government interference.”
Taking on Mr Ablakwa for involving the President during his protest, Miss Ohene said, “Obviously, a demonstration is more sexy when it ends at Jubilee House, but I assure the Honourable Member for North Tongu, he was out by a long shot.”
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