Kofi Bosompem Osafo-Maafo, the new Director General of the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT), has disclosed that investing in the housing sector is no longer an investment the scheme would consider.

The Director General in assigning reasons for this is that it was no longer profitable for them to do so based on the experiences they had in the past on such investments.

He made the remarks in response to a question he was asked at the 2024 edition of the Employers Breakfast Meeting (EBM), an annual event led by the Director-General of SSNIT.

The event was held to engage compliant employers and to also meet other stakeholders to provide clarity on any issue they may have and further enhance the good working relationship that exists between the Trust and employers.

It was held on September 5, 2024, on the theme “Maximising the Use of Digital Platforms to Improve Contribution Collection and Payments”.

During the questions and answer segment, a participant asked SSNIT why it was not investing in housing to enable contributors to purchase their homes through SSNIT.

In responding, the Director General said SSNIT was at one point very heavily invested in SSNIT housing around the country, but when you see these housing units around, SSNIT no longer owns any of those because it has sold them off, with only a handful left being used as staff housing.

He argued that there was a good reason why that was done.

“First of all, the acquisition of land banks around the country itself has issues. The land issues I need not go into in this country. If SSNIT goes around buying land and indeed we do hold a lot of land banks and there is a significant amount of encroaching, how do we even protect that land? All these are issues I believe we don’t have to go into. It is a risk we no longer want to take. So it’s been explored; it hasn’t worked for us, and we should elsewhere at solving the housing issues in the country.”

He also revealed that some Ghanaian workers who occupied the SSNIT flats refused to pay rent because the money used in constructing the buildings came from their contributions.

“The other point about this SSNIT Housing is that workers such as yourself occupied those buildings, and they didn’t want to pay rent. A lot of people sit in SSNIT properties, and they think because it has to do with SSNIT they won’t pay. But they forget that by the time they retire, the money you put in needs to have earned a return in order to pay you a pension. So again, our own attitudes at times dictate towards some of these programmes you are suggesting.”

He said discussions are indeed ongoing, and there are mortgage products out there that depend on securitising tier two and tier three pensions such that you retire, it then goes on to provide payments for properties that you borrowed to own or occupy.

“So I think that it’s better left in the Tier 2 and Tier 3 schemes than the mass investment of your money in housing for workers. The third point I would make about that as well is that I think you’ve all heard about the affordable housing scenes at Borteyman and Asokore Mampong. Those, as far as I know, are the largest affordable housing schemes that have been executed in recent years. I think Borteyman is 1,400 units while Asokore Mampong is 1000 units.

We took that over the government in 2015 and 2016 and completed all of them, and they’ve sold out. So indeed, when it mattered, we played our part in providing affordable housing. But getting involved in housing along the line that you suggest is likely to be detrimental to the scheme rather than beneficial, and if it is detrimental to the scheme, it is detrimental to the contributors.”