The Chairman of the forum, Isaac Bampoe-Addo, said “the forum has resolved to suspend temporarily the intended 29^th September 2017 indefinite nationwide strike action communicated earlier through our press release while the joint sectional committee completes its work.”

[contextly_sidebar id=”a07RMMJSLUWrNFYkMMsIAEEqs00rS9eT”]”The forum calls on all members to remain calm. We take this opportunity to salute the courage and resolve of our members in this dear period,” Mr. Bampoe-Addo added.

The strike was to protest government’s handling of their Tier-2 pension contributions.

The unions were demanding that their pension contributions spanning 2010 to 2016, be transferred to their custodian banks rather than being kept in their temporary pensions account where it accrues no interest.

The unions included the Ghana Medical Association, the Civil and Local Government Staff Association (CLOGSAG) and the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT).

In 2014, the labour unions laid down their tools to make similar demands and were sued by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) government to end the strike that, which resulted in the partial or complete shutdown of most public institutions.

They challenged the Finance Ministry’s decision to use Pension Alliance Trust as a sole trustee of the second tier pension scheme for all employees on government payroll.

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By: Kojo Agyeman/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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These allegations had to do with annuities imposed on the payment of lump sums and the computation of average annual salaries for pensions.

[contextly_sidebar id=”YCjacsd7dh2oRsjzrk6jQHfCDdLLNZmD”]In a Finder Newspaper report, the Union said SSNIT has been cheating trustees, and held that the Trust had imposed annuity on the payment of lump sum, which reduces the lump sum for 12 years by 41.9%, in contrast with the PNDC Law 247 of 1991  regulating pensions.

The union compared this to the CAP 30, police pension, among others, which are paid gratuity without any annuity deductions.

But responding to the concerns and allegations, the acting Head of Corporate Affairs at SSNIT, Victoria Abaidoo, likened the pension contributions to an investment, which could accrue penalties if withdrawn prematurely.

The PNDC law 247’s Section 36 deals with the formula for computation of pensions and it says in that, “for the purpose of computing pension benefits a member may be paid a full or a reduced pension: Provided that such a member may exercise the option for a part lump sum payment of twenty-five per centum of his pension and a reduced pension payment.

Mrs. Baidoo explained that, per the law, retirees have an option to take 25 percent of the total benefit they are supposed to have for a period of 12 years at a go, and when you opt for the 25 percent lump sum, “what it means is that the payment that you are supposed to make in 12 years, you want to take it today.”

“…Like any financial transaction, if you want to take your money or your investment when it is not mature, it is discounted. So the annuity factor there is indicating that we are discounting the amount of money that you are supposed to get in 12 years and giving you the present value today.”

She also noted that the comparison of SSNIT to CAP 30 was a non-starter as that was not based on contributions.

“It is the government’s way of paying off people who have worked in the Civil Service as Senior officers, but when it comes to SSNIT,  it is the contribution you put in that determines how much you are going to get,” Mrs. Abaidoo said.

Calculating annual salary of best three years

The other bone of contention from the Health Services Workers’ Union has to do with the computation of the annual salary of the last three years of a worker in situations a worker retires before the last month of the year.

Section two of the PNDC law 247 says: “the minimum pension payment shall be based on fifty per centum of the average annual salary for the three best years of a member during his working life.”

The union noted as an example that, a member who retires on April 1, 2017, will, for example, have nine months’ salaries counted in 2014, four years preceding retirement, seemingly to his detriment as he will be cheated by SSNIT.

Mrs. Abaidoo, however, stands by this formula for calculating pensions, explaining that it would be impossible for the Trust to take contributions from unearned salaries.

“…When a contribution has come to SSNIT, we are looking at that salary that brought in the contribution to calculate your pension. So if your contribution has not come, how do we use an unknown salary to calculate your pension? So what happens here is, if the person actually retires in March… then they would have to go back to pick the number of months that will add up to the 12 months for us to get an annual salary to complete the pension.”

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By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post We’re not cheating pensioners – SSNIT appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

Speaking on Eyewitness News, Mr. Simons noted that about half of the money SSNIT has invested is generating negative returns.

[contextly_sidebar id=”91qdXg5HgkjXGp8ivFhkfB8Ezl0EqQzA”]”When you look at how much SSNIT invests and the mechanisms through which it invests, you have to start becoming very worried. No wonder SSNIT itself says that in 14 years, it will run out of money… 45 percent of SSNIT’s output now is trending towards negative returns. That is frightening.”

“SSNIT’s most profitable area is actually to go and compete with the Banks because when you look at its portfolio, it is the loans and things that are doing well. So we need to start reconfiguring the entire portfolio investment approach of SSNIT. That is very critical.”

Mr. Simons explained that SSNIT, on paper, is in a good enough position to provide enough security to pensioners given Ghana has a huge advantage, with one beneficiary to almost 10 active contributors, but SSNIT “pays out benefits almost half of what it receives as contributions.”

Among questions, he queried why, “it [SSNIT] has over four million members but of that, only about 1.5 to 1.6 million are active contributors.”

He attributed this to government indebtedness, indicating that, “the government of Ghana owed SSNIT, for a while, nearly $150 million dollars and were defaulting and the private sector had only about 15 percent of the default rate and yet still, SSNIT had no strategy to go after the public sector.”

Mr. Simons’ assessment resembled Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia’s bleak projections in 2016 when he promised an urgent review of SSNIT investments and costs to ensure its financial sustainability.

Dr. Bawumia held that pensioners were under threat and that the World Bank in its 2016 report on governance of SSNIT, stated that the actuarial valuation shows that the fund will become a cash flow negative in 2019 and all assets will be used up by 2031.

As part of the urgent undertakings to ensure the sustainability of SSNIT, Dr. Bawumia said an NPP government will ensure that the funds of the National Pension’s Regulatory Authority will be applied solely for the purpose of the development of pensions and we will fully implement section 103 of the pension act which assigns pension benefits for housing of workers.

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By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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At a meeting to discuss the management of their pension funds, the Secretary General of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), Dr. Anthony Yaw Baah called for closer collaboration to address all the questions surrounding the health of their funds.

[contextly_sidebar id=”W1Mk14m93S2v4uI3KOUc1YywrgFwn5sz”]“We will want to encourage them to engage us as much as possible. I was happy to hear that the receiver is planning to meet with TUC… the Bank of Ghana is here and I think that is the way to go.”

The Minister for Employment and Labour Relations, Ignatius Baffour Awuah, who was in the meeting with Bank of Ghana officials, assured worried members of organized labor that government will ensure their interests are protected.

“What we seek to do is ensure that we maintain a very sound and strong financial environment, where people are bold enough to deposit their monies there and that they would also be bold enough to walk to the banks to if the need be for assistance to help in whatever they want to do,” he said.

No cause for alarm

Also on the matter of pensions, the National Pensions Regulatory Authority (NPRA) assured the current pensions law adequately protects all contributors.

In a statement, it said, “trustees who have appointed UT Bank as their custodian bank to be rest assured that pension funds in custody of the bank are not affected by the purchased and takeover by GCB Bank and the subsequent withdrawals of their license by the Bank of Ghana.”

“The National Pensions Act, 2008 (Act 766), as amended, had made special provisions for such takeovers in section 209 (1 and 2) and, therefore, there was no cause for alarm,” the NPRA added in the statement.

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By: Kojo Agyemang/citifmonline.com/Ghana

The post Banks collapse: Protect our pension funds – TUC appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

The said the Finance Ministry was already working to improve the administration of pensions in the country.

“…the Ministry of Finance, despite our short period in office, is already working on procedures to streamline and improve the administration of pensions. Those procedures will be made public in the very near future.”

The President added that measures are being put in place to address the needs of workers in formal and informal sectors.

These measures, he said, are “specifically to set up pension arrangements for farmers in our major cash crop agricultural sectors like cocoa, coffee, sheanuts, palm oil, pineapple and cashew nuts; and for members of small scale business associations, like umbrella organizations such as GPRTU/PROTOA and Association of Small Scale Industries (ASSI), and similar associations across the country.”

Government, he added further, also remains committed to providing the aged with a Freedom Pass to enable them ride for free on all public transportation.

President Akufo-Addo made this known on Saturday, 1st July, 2017, at a lunch held for senior citizens at the Banquet Hall of the State House, to commemorate 57 years since Ghana became a Republic.

The President also assured that “we shall continue to recognise and honour the sacrifices and inputs made to the growth and development of our nation by all of you gathered here this afternoon.”

President Akufo-Addo stated that it is for this reason that the 2016 Manifesto of the New Patriotic Party, pledged to develop and implement policies for the aged, and mainstream aging issues into the framework for national development.

Government, the President assured, “is committed to the realisation of this, and is rolling out programmes and initiatives geared to this end.”

President Akufo-Addo was grateful for to the senior citizens, both present and absent from the ceremony for the considerable contributions to the building of modern Ghana in all fields of endeavour.

“Our nation remains indebted to you. Your names should be enshrined in letters of gold in our history, because you have helped enhance the image of our country,” he added

Conditions of freedom and democracy

President Akufo-Addo noted that the Ghanaian people, just as they had demonstrated in the drive towards independence in the 1940s and 1950s, showed again their determination to live in conditions of freedom and democracy.

“On 28th April, 1992, they approved, by an overwhelming margin in a Referendum of that day, the adoption of the provisions of the Constitution of the 4th Republic, which set up the institutions of a liberal democratic state, operating on the basis of the separation of powers, with express guarantees of fundamental human rights,” he said.

The President continued, “We can all say, without any equivocation, that the 4th Republic has seen the longest period of stable constitutional governance in our history, and the benefits are showing. We have experienced in this era sustained economic growth; freedom of speech is now taken for granted; Parliament is making a good fist of exercising its oversight duties; and the Judiciary continues to demonstrate its independence.”

Nonetheless, President Akufo-Addo stated that the country continues to suffer important institutional and other deficits, such as widespread unemployment, corruption in the Executive and in the Judiciary, lack of authority of Parliament over public finances, and the lack the full logistical complement and personnel for the security services to provide adequate and effective safeguard for the nation’s stability and security.

“There is, however, far more self-confidence among Ghanaians today, than there has been since the very early days of self-government. Freedom and the spread of democratic values are strengthening the determination of Ghanaians to build a new Ghana, that is neither pawn nor victim of the world economic order,” he added.

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Source: Flagstaff House

The post Gov’t streamlining administration of pensions – Akufo-Addo appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.