The Auditor General’s Department has recommended to the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) to employ the services of independent valuers before giving out loans, following the huge number of defaulters on its books.
The Auditor General’s advice to SSNIT came to light during the Public Accounts Committee’s (PAC) hearing on Thursday June 23.
Speaking to Class News, however, Mr Ernest Thompson, the Director General of SSNIT, said even though the trust was comfortable with the idea of independent valuers, it already had in-house experts, who take care of collaterals and guarantees before loans are given out.
He told parliamentary correspondent Ekow Annan: “If SSNIT is giving a loan to a company or any entity, they will give us security. …What the auditors were saying is that we should try and get independent valuers to value the security for us, but, actually before we do it, we ourselves have a lot of investment analysts and valuers, so it is always done”.
“Secondly, in some of these cases, let’s say if you give a loan to La Palm [Hotel] and let’s say its GHS5million and you use the whole of La Palm’s assets as security, La Palm’s assets on paper is over GHS100million, so at times, we say why go and get an independent valuer when our valuers themselves have valued it and recorded it. That means you need to pay the independent valuer too.”
Source: ClassFMonline
