NAGRAT President Christian Addai-Poku
The President of the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT), Christian Addai Poku, says government is partly to blame for the delays in the full implementation of the new pension scheme.
The Board of the National Pensions Regulatory Authority (NPRA), set up to oversee the implementation of the National Pensions Act 2008 (Act 766), is yet to fulfill its major mandate of licensing occupational pension schemes to work directly with contributors.
During a discussion on the matter on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show Monday, a member of the board, Dr Thomas Bediako said the implementation has delayed due to resource and financial constraints.
But the NAGRAT president, who called into an extended version of the discussion Tuesday, insisted that government must also be held responsible for the manner in which workers’ pension contributions are currently being handled.
While the Pension’s Act mandates the NPRA to license occupational schemes to manage the contributions, the board has for the past two years been ‘deducting and managing’ five percent of workers’ salaries. And this, according to IMANI Ghana’s Franklin Cudjoe is an act of illegality.
Admitting that the NPRA cannot deliver without the needed resources, Christian Addai-Poku maintained that if government was committed to seeing to the implementation of the new scheme, it would have provided the Authority with all the resources needed.
“I believe that it is not only the NPRA that should be blamed but Government of Ghana is to take the bigger share of the blame because if they (NPRA) are not being funded well to do their job, then it is a way of crippling them,” Christian insisted.
He added that the musical chairs and power-play that has characterized the affairs of NPRA board is a clear manifestation of the fact that “some people have the motivation not to ensure that this thing is implemented well.”
“What is the position of government on this matter, what are the workers’ representatives on the board doing to make sure that the interests of Ghanaian workers are protected?”
However Dr Thomas Bediako assured that the NPRA board is fully committed to discharging its duties.
“I can give him (Christian) every possible assurance that as soon as we approve the schemes, we will start distributing the monies which are in treasury bills at the moment…therefore there is no need for the workers to doubt the integrity of me and Yaw Baah (also a member of the board),” he stressed.
Play the attached audio for excerpts of Tuesday’s discussion