Accra, Nov. 23, GNA - The Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) says it is embarking on an e-business programme to further expand the scope of its interactions with contributors and employers.

Mr Kwasi Osei, Director General of the Trust, said the programme fell under the Medium Term Strategic Plan 2005-2009. Speaking at the launch of the SSNIT Customer Service Charter for improved quality service delivery, Mr Osei said the Trust had achieved considerable progress in building good quality data, and was currently processing 70 per cent of benefits with its own in house data. He said this was a complete departure from the past, where in some instances the Trust had asked members applying for their benefits to personally go round to collect and bring data to enable the Trust to process and pay benefits.

Mr Osei said the SSNIT had also embarked on a programme to ensure that data on all registered members were as complete as possible adding that it was also working hard to ensure that all registered members had valid social security numbers.

Additionally, Mr Osei said a project was underway to integrate all its automated business processes to improve co-ordination among the key operating units such as Records, Students' Loan, Pension and Benefit Payroll.

The Trust is implementing the Wide Area Network Facility in two phases. The first phase involves the provision of an information superhighway connecting the 18 offices in Accra and Tema, to enable them access the central system as well as share information with one another. The second phase would involve linkages to branches outside Accra-Tema.

According to Mr Osei, the new infrastructure the SSNIT was developing would make information available on time anywhere within the SSNIT system, and contributors and employers could expect speedy response to their queries from locations afar.

He said the Trust had also planned to implement an automated fingerprinting system to take off next year, to help improve the system of identification of members and also check any potential fraud. As part of its data infrastructure development, the Trust intends to establish an ultra modern data centre to provide the state of the art systems support services to network its nation wide operations.