Campaign on successful retirement launched

Business News of Saturday, 10 February 2018

Source: Graphic.com.gh

2018-02-10

Beige RetireCampaign seeks to target about two million people to enable them to retire comfortably

The BEIGE Pension Trust has launched a one-year nationwide campaign to educate workers in both the formal and the informal sectors on the need to start planning their retirement.

The campaign seeks to target about two million people to enable them to retire comfortably within the next 20 years.

Speaking to the Daily Graphic after the launch of the campaign in Accra yesterday, the Managing Director of the Beige Pension Trust, Mr Richmond Kwame Frimpong, said the issue of retirement concerned everyone, hence the decision by the trust to take the campaign to both formal and informal sector workers in all 10 regions of the country.

Launch

“The launch brought together market associations and companies from the informal sector and we specifically did a presentation for them to know that we are actually involving them and not only formal sector workers.

“We have also translated all our materials into local languages and will soon go out to let ordinary Ghanaians know that, whether in the formal or informal sector, you can also earn a pension income,” he added.

Importance

The Director of Planning, Research, Monitoring and Evaluation at the National Pensions Regulatory Authority (NPRA), Mr Ernest Amartey-Vonde, said there were two stages in life that a person would not escape: death and retirement.

“Everybody will die and if you don’t die, you will retire one day and there is, therefore, the need to prepare for these two. For a good number of people, pension becomes important when they are close to the age where they are about to exit from their active working life. When people are nearing the retirement age, that is when they start running to SSNIT in a bid to change their retiring ages due to poor planning,” he added.

Mr Amartey-Vonde further stated that each day marked how closer a person was getting to retirement and advised those who wanted to have successful retirement lives to start planning now.

“Pension planning is good as it tackles accommodation, health and other challenges when you are no longer in active service,” he said.

He said it was for those reasons that the NPRA had intensified its educational campaign on pensions and commended the Beige Trust for its initiative.

Planning

The Chairman of the Beige Bank, Mr Kofi Otutu Adu Larbi, wondered why some people did not plan their retirement when they knew it is unavoidable.

“We are all going on a journey and we should make sure that we have no regrets when we arrive at our destination. We need to have an understanding of money and proper financial independence in order to live comfortable retirement lives,” he stated, adding that “the money you earn today, no matter how little it is, is seed for tomorrow’s harvest”.

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