In the ensuing battle for honour of pensions. . .

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Franklin Cudjoe, IMANI Ghana
Franklin Cudjoe, IMANI Ghana

Watch this movie very well. In the ensuing battle for honour of pensions,

1. The Minister for Labour says government will withdraw the ill-motivated court case against labour if they declare an end to the strike over their pensions.
2. The Minister for Labour, his deputy and several misinformed government communicators claim the beleaguered pension fund had yielded Ghc 440m.
3. The National Pensions Regulatory Authority (NPRA), claims the pension fund had accrued GHc1.64 bn of both private and public employees.
4. The Minister for Agric had also claimed the fund had accrued Ghc 1.2bn

My advice: The Labour Ministers and ill-informed government spokespersons should cease making a mockery of themselves by calling figures as if they are lotto numbers. Crucially, they should stop annoying all Ghanaian workers with hurriedly arranged meetings without a clear agenda to change the position of imposing A PRIVATE pension fund manager on workers.

The workers should end the strike on Tuesday but counter sue the government to seek final redress on their pensions. Meanwhile the following must be done

1. The NPRA should immediately, without delay, be asked to produce an Investment report showing how much monies have been received, what it has been invested in return on investment over the period.
2. The NPRA should be ordered to announce a cut-off date for taking Tier 2 contributions into the Temporary Pension Fund by employers to undertake a unified and proper accounting .
3. Employers be informed to make their mandatory Tier 2 and voluntary Tier 3 contributions into schemes of their choice starting from contributions.
4. The Board Chairman (or the entire Board) of the NPRA made to step aside while a forensic audit is undertaken on the stewardship of the NPRA over the Temporary Pension Fund and the investment activities of the NPRA with respect to same.
5. When all of these are over , Ghanaian workers should TURN UP THE HEAT ON the state pension manager SSNIT for the following emerging revelations.

1. The State Pension Manager, SSNIT, risks collapsing in three years. Currently it is unable to pay worker pensions in full. It is adopting a scheduled payment formula unknown to any serious scheme.
2. The government also is reported to owe SSNIT over a year’s contributions, yet they have been deducted from worker’s salaries. The government does not pay penalties for defaulting to pay in time as all employers should do by law.
3. SSNIT is implementing an archaic systems administration for the administration of pensions. The system is several decades behind new and cheaper technology. SSNIT had budgeted $40m for the system but due to the expected faulty operations, SSNIT is spending ADDITIONAL $50m to maintain a defunct system. To register a new ‘client ‘ of the scheme under this useless system, it takes about 7 papers and more time that it used to be under the older system when there was no this antiquated system SSNIT calls “OPERATIONAL BUSINESS SUITE”.
4.The provider of this defunct and utterly needless system is reported to be a wife of a senior IT manager so raising possible conflict of interests. They are said to be a front for a Malaysian company that is simply wasting pension funds.

5. SSNIT has too many staff for needless operations. In a year, SSNIT had added over 700 staff bringing staff to almost 3000 instead of the much leaner staff a little under a decade ago. Some senior managers of SSNIT are due for retirement in a year or two and their activities must be checked to prevent padding of the scheme with family members. Already it is reported that some of the staff is made up of children of leading managers and people with suspicious certificates being promoted without merit.

6. As I write 10 branch managers’ positions may be axed to be taken over by ineffective and inefficient staff some possibly family members. There are murmurings too. Many in SSNIT allege that there was an ethnic overhaul of SSNIT about 6 years ago. There was another ethnic overhaul of SSNIT a year ago.
THERE IS MORE COMING UP ON SSNIT.

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  • 25 people like this.
  • 4 shares
  • Paul Opon Tutu please what is ethnic overhaul?
    3 hrs ? Like
  • Kwame Tieku I have come to the realisation that our public institutions are “social welfare institutions” they will rather recruit 10 incompetent people to do a job that 1 highly trained professional can do! Job for the boys and girls is a key consideration in recruitment! Lol
    Source-Franklin Cudjoe
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