The Senior Staff Association, Universities of Ghana (SSA-UoG) has warned government not to touch its pension contributions or face members wrath.
“We are sounding a word of caution to the National Pensions Regulatory Authority (NPRA), our Fund Managers (Petra Trust) and our Board of Trustees, to ensure that our contributions are not affected by this so-called ‘Debt Restructuring Programme’,” the Association had noted in a press statement signed by its National Chairman, Isaac Donkoh in Accra.
Somewhere last week, the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori Atta said Government is implementing a Debt Exchange Programme, which in effect implies doing a haircut on Government of Ghana (GoG) held bonds, including those held by pension funds managers as part of its IMF negotiations and domestic debt restructuring programmes.
The Senior Staff Association described this action by the Government as an insensitive behaviour towards the ordinary Ghanaian worker.
“We see this action by the Government as an insensitive behaviour towards the ordinary Ghanaian worker who continues to render invaluable services to Mother Ghana even under this unbearable and harsh economic conditions, which can, at best, be described as self-inflicted by the very people who were supposed to initiate policies towards alleviating the unabated suffering of the ordinary Ghanaian.
“We will, therefore, resist this insensitive action by the Government with the last drop of our blood and insist that under no circumstance should Government touch our hard-earned pension contributions,” the Senior Staff stressed.
However, the Association recommended that the Government initiates certain policies to help address the situation. And these include the need to operate a lean government by cutting down on the number of ministers and other appointees, reduce the number of SUVs in Presidential convoys and a cut in the salaries of all government appointees.
These, they believe, will go a long way to help reduce the expenditure of the Government, and improve Ghana’s debt situation rather than the haircutting of individuals’ investments.
“We want to take this opportunity to appeal to the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, as a matter of urgency, to carry out recalculation of all the accrued interest on our Tier-2 contributions from 2010-2016 in accordance with Section 64 of the National Pensions Act, 2008 (Act 766), and pay some to our Fund Managers. Unfortunately, the Ministry had failed to address this matter despite the numerous letters written to it in that regard, and we shall advise ourselves very soon,” the statement concluded.
