Objections from Labour unions and other stakeholders made us terminate the process – SSNIT Boss

The Director-General of the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT), Kofi Bosompem Osafo-Maafo, has disclosed that the objections from labour unions and other stakeholders against the sale of the four hotels caused the Trust to abrogate the deal.

Speaking in an interview on Accra-based Citi FM, Mr. Osafo-Maafo said SSNIT promised to engage stakeholders before finalizing the deal and so they had to pay heed to the demands of the various stakeholders including Organised labour after several meetings.

“We listened to the objections from the stakeholders and we decided to terminate the process. If you remember, when we had the press conference, we said we would engage all the stakeholders and we have been doing that since then. The unions have also been vociferous and we listened to their demands and decided to terminate the process.

“My team and I met with the unions and the Labour and Employment Minister and we had two engagements with the NPRA, so there has been continuous engagement and where we are now, we are all seeking the same objective, which is to improve the revenue of the hotels,” he said in an interview on July 15.

He clarified that contrary to what was previously said, the process of selling SSNIT’s hotel shares began in 2010.

“We don’t think that we left it too late, there were businesses that we have had since 2010.

This process started as far back as 2010, when the board invited in investors and then in 2017 and then in 2018 the board directed that we go in to find strategic investors and the process traveled through to 2022.”