TDCL organizes symposium on pension
The Tema District Council of Labour (TDCL) has organized a one day symposium on pension as part of activities to mark the 2019 May Day celebration.
The theme for the symposium was “Sustaining pensions for all, the role of the social partners”.
Mr Emmanuel Awuku Dagbanu, Education and Training Manager, National Pensions Regulatory Authority (NPRA), urged pension contributors to regularly demand for their statements to ensure related issues were addressed before their retirement.
Mr Dagbanu indicated that anomalies such as having gabs in the contributions even though employers deducted the employees could be addressed earlier when detected from such statements to avoid inconveniences when one retires and need to claim their benefits.
He also advised employees to invest into provident funds even as they do the mandatory pension contributions to cushion them when they were out of active service.
Educating participants on the pension scheme, he noted that the National Pensions Act, 2008 (Act 766) catered for the establishment of a contributory three-tier pension scheme with a Pensions Regulatory Authority to oversee the administration and management of the composite scheme.
He added that the new scheme comprised of two mandatory schemes and a voluntary scheme, adding that the first tier was the basic national social security scheme being managed by the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) while the mandatory tier two and voluntary tier three schemes were privately managed by trustees licensed by the NPRA.
To safeguard members’ interest as well as to sustain the pension system, he said the trustees work with the pension fund managers and custodians registered by the Pensions Authority and licensed by the Security and Exchange Commission.
Mr Dagbanu urged all contributors and Labour unions to make sure that employers registered them in the mandatory pension schemes while they get themselves informed about their scheme contribution arrangements and be familiar with the work of trustees and their obligations.
Mr Joshua Ansah, Deputy Secretary-General of the Ghana Trades Union Congress (TUC), charged all national unions to make provision for pension officers who would be responsible to check on pension updates for employees and help resolve any contribution issues.
Mr Ansah said even though the NPRA, and the Pension Authority were the authorized entities to regulate the pension system, employees must make it a point to bring out the lapses in the system.
Mr Bright Wereko-Brobbey, Deputy Employment Minister, on his part, said leadership of labour unions were not in bed with government as workers perceived, but rather government was on good relationship with labour.
Source: GNA