By Bright Agamah
The Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, Ignatius Baffour-Awuah, has challenged labour unions to continue to embrace social protection interventions to safeguard the welfare of workers, during retirement. He also encouraged workers to start a retirement plan at the early stage of their working life. Mr, Baffour-Awuah said this when he inaugurated an eight-member Board of Trustees of the Ghana National Association of Teachers, GNAT, Provident Fund, in Accra. The Employment and Labour Relations Minister, said pension is a serious social protection intervention which should not be toyed with under any situation.
“We have seen so many people retire and their light are not as bright as they were working unfortunately it is also at that age that difficulties in life are encountered by individuals. You are aged, your children may not have finished schooling you need to spend on them, you don’t have any means of income to be able to meet all those occurrences, that is why it beholds us to make sure that even whiles working we think of our retirement”
“Please manage their affairs very well if you will cheat anybody in this world it is not that person that is weak and unable to do things on his own because of old age” Mr. Baffuor Awuah added.
Mr. Baffour-Awuah, tasked the Board members to ensure transparency in their operations, especially in the area of investment information to enable members to be abreast of the growth and success of the fund.
“It behoves on you the trust board to also make available to members especially information on their investments, if at any point in time their investment is attracting some interests you should let them know” .
He added “ it is expected that upon retirement if you put all the three together you will be restored to not less than 80 percent of what you were receiving whiles you were working. But because tier three is not compulsory often times people leave that one out and when you take out your residual this thing is supposed to be around 65 and 70 percent so people who do not know this end up receiving their pension entitlement, with the conclusion that oh! our pensions are too small” .
In a remark the General Secretary of GNAT, Thomas Musah, said the inauguration of the board and its subsequent activities are in fulfillment of the resolution adopted at the Association’s Quadrennial conference.
The President of GNAT, Rev. Isaac Owusu, asked members to take keen interest in the activities of the association’s Provident fund which is a Tier-Three scheme, for retirees to enjoy their pension in dignity.
”Oour past officers started something and we here to continue and if we will be able to sell our products to the general public it will not take individuals but is collective effort one need to put our hands to make sure that all of us will be proud so that at the end of it all we be a witness to this great day”.
The Board is chaired by the National Treasurer of GNAT, Ransford Lolih and include the General Secretary of the Association, Thomas Musah, Victor DeGraft Etsison and Peter Obeng Nyamekye. The rest are Helen Asantewaa, Daniel Tomey, Isaac Baah and Philip Dela Zumanu.
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