SSNIT to retrieve salaries paid interdicted IT boss

• Posted on August 29, 2017August 29, 2017
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

Interdicted SSNIT IT boss, Dr Caleb Afaglo may have to return all salaries paid him by the Trust following revelations that he presented fake documents for the job in 2015.

The retrieval of the salaries he has received since his appointment in October 2015 to July 2017 is expected to feature prominently at a crucial SSNIT board meeting scheduled for Wednesday.

Joy News sources at the Trust say the board, chaired by former Defense Minister, Dr Addo Kufuor, wants to restore the integrity of the organisation after it received a battering in recent weeks.

The revelation about the lack of documents to back Dr Afaglo’s advertised credentials came a week after a $72 million software deal awarded by the Trust in 2012 was made public.

The contract has generated heated debate in the country, causing public disaffection for the Trust.

The initial contract sum was $34 million and it was to automate processes at the Trust.

The software was to provide superior services to SSNIT customers, reduce member enrolment cycle through forms, provide effective reporting solution, achieve real time processing of contribution reports and reduce benefit processing time.

But it was later revealed the system cost the Trust, which manages funds for pensioners, an unbudgeted $72 million within a four-year period.

The Trust is still paying for some components of it, current SSNIT Director-General John Tenkorang has told Joy News.

As though on cue, it has also been revealed that the man who played a key role in the implementation of some components of the contract has no degrees he claimed to have obtained.

An investigation by anti-graft agency, Economic and Organised Crime Office (EOCO) has disclosed Dr Afaglo has neither a master’s degree nor a first degree as he claimed.

He was handed the job in October 2015 after serving as an IT consultant to SSNIT and other state institutions including National Pensions Regulatory Authority (NPRA) and Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC).

Joy News sources at SSNIT say Dr Afaglo was selected for the top IT job at the Trust because of his ‘impeccable’ credentials which EOCO now says are non-existent.

With a new mandate to purge the organisation of all filth, the SSNIT Board under the authority of Dr Kufuor has summoned an emergency meeting to consider how it could compel Dr Afaglo to return all monies paid him.

The Board will also put in place mechanisms to avert future bad deals, Joy News sources have revealed.

-Myjoyonline