The Vice President of the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT) Angel Carbonu has likened retirement from active service in Ghana to the signing of one’s death warrant particularly in the public service.
Mr. Carbonu described retirement in Ghana as “miserable” blaming government for showing little commitment to improving retirement packages.
The NAGRAT Vice President’s assertion follows reports that the Headmaster of the Jachie-Pramso Senior High School (JAPASS) in the Ashanti Region, was locked out of his office for refusing to leave office despite reaching his retirement age.
[contextly_sidebar id=”OPLhOZi3xB6YkF89CwGzyQJJceZZ2yJZ”]Mr. Carbonu said inasmuch as he does not endorse the head teacher’s action, he believes the system is to blame for it.
“This Headmaster may not have planned for his retirement and seeing the fate of his other colleagues who have retired he decides to hang on. I am not in support of his attempt to hang on because when you are due for retirement, you must do the honourable thing and leave. It is disrespectful to your person and the service you’ve rendered to this nation to get yourself involved in that embarrassing situation”. But those of us in the service ought to fight for better retirement packages; and that should include all those working in the private sector. We as a nation need to prioritize the talk on our retirement” he stressed.
According to Mr. Carbonu, per the engagement rules, every public sector worker is expected to take a three-month leave prior to retirement but for fear of the unknown many people avoid it.
“To retire in Ghana especially from the public service, is to sign your early death warrant. This is because as a people and as a nation, we have not taken issues of retirement seriously. If you recall, 12 labour unions went on strike in this country engaged in series of demonstrations for the Government of Ghana to allow our second tier pension scheme to work. The government took us to court and the court placed an injunction on the labour unions not to engage in any action relating to the issue in court until the issue is determined”.
“As I speak to you, the matter is in court and we have had series of discussions with the Minister of Employment. And now we are in 2015 going to 2016, a programme that ought to have been started in 2010 to allow the individual sectorial pension schemes to run is not running” he lamented.
Mr. Carbonu further asked “Why did we agitate for a different tier of pension scheme from SSNIT? It’s because whenever people retire in this country, what they take home is miserable. In Ghana, you will work for several years for the government…teachers have thought for thirty and forty years and they retire to realize that they have sacrificed their lives so people retire to early death. Therefore one thing people fear in this country is to retire. So you realize that when the retirement time approaches, they become very miserable; some even attempt to change dates of birth with the excuses that it was a mistake and all that”.
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By: Ebenezer Afanyi Dadzie/citifmonline.com/Ghana