Authority educates workers on pension scheme

The National Pensions Regulatory Authority (NPRA), said workers who were 50 years and above by 2010 would now fall under the old Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) pension scheme.

This has come about as a result of age reduction from 55 to 50 years under the National Pensions (amendment) Act, 2014 ACT 883 to benefit those who fall in that category.

That category of workers would reverse to the 17.5 per cent as their contributions, and not the 18.5 percent contributions under the new three-Tier Pension Scheme and SSNIT would be required to pay their pension under the PNDC Law 247.

Those who hitherto contributed into the two-Tier Pension Scheme would also have their contributions worked out and transferred to SSNIT to enable it to pay them appropriately.

Mr Laud Senanu, Acting Chief Executive Officer of NPRA, made these known during an outreach programme to educate and sensitize workers in the formal and informal sectors in Wa,  to help deepen their understanding of the three-Tier Pension Scheme.

He said the qualifying contribution period had also been reduced from 20 to 15 years, while annuity period had increased from 12 to 15 years.

Mr Senanu hinted that the NPRA would soon hold a stakeholders conference to discuss with government the uniformity of all pension schemes in Ghana.

Discussing was also on-going between NPRA and SSNIT to allow workers to use SSNIT numbers for the 1st and 2nd Tier pension scheme.

This, he said would help in the unification of pension schemes and make pension payment easier and simple.

The workers called for the establishment of Regional Offices of the NPRA,  to help facilitate education of workers on the three-tier pension scheme.

Source: GNA