Efforts to Get More People Under Pension Scheme (Page 34)

Story: Lucy Adoma Yeboah
THE Chairman of the Pension Reform Implementation Committee (PRIC), Mr T.A. Bediako, has stated that Ghana cannot boast of an acceptable pension scheme when about 85 per cent of its workforce operating in the informal sector are left out.
To change that situation, the new pension reform bill makes provision for the inclusion of workers in the private sector in the proposed pension scheme.
The Presidential Commission on Pensions, set up by President J.A. Kufuor in July 2004, proposed a three-tier scheme. The first consists of a mandatory basic national social security scheme responsible for monthly pensions only; the second scheme is a mandatory, privately managed occupational or work-based scheme to pay lump sums, while the third is a voluntary provident fund and personal pension scheme which can cater for workers in the informal sector and others who want to contribute, in addition to the first two schemes.
Presenting a paper on, “Ensuring Adequate Social Security and Good Pension Governance in Ghana: The Role of the Pension Reform Implementation Committee”, which was organised by the Legal Resource Centre and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) in Accra yesterday, Mr Bediako said to have a better scheme for the Ghanaian worker, the committee looked at schemes in other countries and built on them.
He also said to ensure good pension governance, the PRIC had made proposals in the bill with regard to supervision and management of the new pension scheme in particular, especially the privately managed schemes.
Explaining that point, he said there would be an independent National Pensions Regulatory Authority to supervise, regulate and monitor the new scheme and also ensure that only companies and individuals that met the necessary criteria were allowed to operate.
He said some advantages of the new three-tier pension scheme were improved pension benefit, workers’ control over their benefits and members’ involvement in running the scheme, which could promote a sense of ownership and create confidence that the scheme was being run properly.
In his presentation, the Head of Education and Training of the Ghana Trades Union Congress (TUC), Mr David Dorkenu, commended the committee for a good work done but added that there was the need to for the scheme to be properly structured to benefit all stakeholders.
He said looking at the challenges facing some regulatory bodies, such as the National Labour Commission (NLC), in terms of accommodation, he wondered how the Pension Regulatory Authority would be accommodated throughout the country to effectively perform.
He raised the issue of private companies running the second tier of the three-tier scheme and suggested that the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) should be empowered to handle that, in addition the first tier.
Mr Dorkenu concluded that care must be taken to avoid the situation where workers’ contribution would be handed to private individuals who might end up misusing them through high salaries and administrative costs.
In response, the Project Consultant of the Pension Reform Implementation Committee, Mr Daniel Aidoo Mensah, said there were adequate mechanisms in place to check abuse of the system, adding that the only groups which would be allowed to handle money were the custodians, who were banks and insurance companies.
He pointed out that the new scheme was based on World Bank recommendations, though it did not dictate to the country how to go about it.
Mr Aidoo Mensah said after looking at the proposals made by the PRIC, the World Bank commended the committee for a good work done.
The Community Director of the FES, Ms Catherine Meissner, said there was the need for people who had contributed to the economy in their active lives to be well catered for when they went on retirement and, therefore, called on the committee to come up with a better pension scheme for Ghanaian workers.
The General Manager in charge of Operations at SSNIT, Mrs Gifty Anterkyi, said the trust had already begun a pilot project to sensitise workers in the informal sector to join the pension scheme.