Trust Hospital Limited and the Labadi Beach Hotel have paid their dividends for the financial year 2017 to the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT).

The Trust Hospital presented GH¢579,979.00 as dividend for the first time since it was incorporated in 2010, while the Labadi Beach Hotel also presented a dividend of GH¢1 million to the Trust.

For the Labadi Beach Hotel however, there was no dividend declared for 2016.

The presentation was made at a brief ceremony held at Pension House in Accra.

In his remarks, Dr Francis Ahiaku, Acting General Manager, Trust Hospital, said it was worth noting for public knowledge that SSNIT remained the owner and sole shareholder of the Hospital.

He recounted that since its incorporation as a limited liability entity, the Company had spent its past few years of existence trying to expand facilities and services in order to position itself strategically.

Dr Ahiaku said most of the revenue generated was invested into recapitalisation of the business in terms of medical equipment and quality human resources; hence, the inability to pay dividends until today.

The Acting General Manager noted that for the year 2017, the company was able to make a net profit after tax of GH¢2,319,916.00, adding that “we are, therefore, in a comfortable position to now pay dividend to our owner, SSNIT”.

Mr David Eduaful, Head of Sales and Marketing, Labadi Beach Hotel, also underscored the need for Ghanaians and institutions to patronise the Labadi Beach Hotel, to enable it to generate more money to pay big dividends to support the pension fund.

He said the hotel supports the Pension Fund because it belongs to Ghanaians and therefore, they should help them to contribute to the Scheme to guarantee their social security during their old age.

Receiving the dividends, Dr John Ofori-Tenkorang, the Director-General of SSNIT, commended the Boards, Managements and staff of the two subsidiaries for the hard work and commitment they had put in the previous year.

He said on the other hand, it was appropriate to also commend the Board and Management of SSNIT for the foresight and the presence of mind to overhaul the Boards of their subsidiaries.

Dr Ofori-Tenkorang said this was done to strengthen the Boards with the relevant expertise to improve the overall corporate governance in these organisations.

He said generally, the Trust’s investment portfolio registered a 5.77 per cent real return in 2017 as against negative 5.93 per cent in 2016; adding that, this performance was above the external actuarial target of 3.25 per cent.

The Director-General noted that Management of the Trust was committed to restructuring the investments and investing in low risk but high yielding investment portfolios.

He said based on sound policies adopted, the Board and Management were confident that in the coming years, a lot more investee companies would be posting some very good returns.

SSNIT is a statutory public Trust charged under the National Pensions Act 2008 Act 766 with the administration of Ghana’s Basic National Social Security Scheme.

As the operator of the First Tier of the Three-Tier Pension Scheme, it replaces part of lost income of workers in Ghana due to Old Age, Invalidity or Death of a member where lump sum payment is made to dependants.

It also pays Emigration benefit to a non-Ghanaian member who is leaving Ghana permanently.

The SSNIT Pension Scheme has a registered membership of about 1.5 million active contributors and 197,729 pensioners as at October, 2018, who are paid a total of over GH¢200 million each month.