General News of Thursday, 8 March 2018
Source: dailyheritage.com.gh
2018-03-08
File photo; The National Pensions Regulatory Authority building
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the National Pensions Regulatory Authority (NPRA), Mr Hayford Atta Krufi, has called on the government to give the authority prosecutorial powers to prosecute employers who fail to pay social security contributions.
Mr Krufi said the core mandate of the authority, which is to inform and educate people on the need to have retirement income security, is gradually changing to enforcing and ensuring that consumers have value for money and enjoy better pay at the end of service.
“With these powers, the Authority will be able to hold employers and companies to task when they fail to remit monthly contribution to the mandatory Tier 1 and Tier 2 pension schemes,” Mr Krufi said.
Mr Krufi made these statements in Accra at a media training exercise on the implementation of the 3-tier pension which is the voluntary group or the personal pension scheme.
He said after the establishment of the National Pensions Act, 2008, Act 766 which was amended, the entity had been able to sensitize the general public and employers on the need to ensure their retirement security by paying monthly contributions.
The CEO said, however, there are still employers and companies who are yet to pay the mandatory social security contribution and may need enforcement from the Authority to comply.
Mr Krufi said the Act stipulates that the minimum age of membership is 15 years and maximum 45 years. He said companies ought, therefore, to comply to secure the future of employees.
He said the authority was put in place to oversee the administration and manage the composite schemes to ensure that the various regulatory bodies of the scheme such as the trustees, fund management and the likes adhered to the rules of safeguarding their investment.
“It will interest you to know that the assets for tier-2 alone stand at GH? 8.5b which keeps on changing and accounting for 5.4% of GDP. We have not even factored in Social Security and National Insurance Trust pension which if you add will be hitting at least 20% of GDP,” he noted.
The NPRA boss added that “we are trying hard to push so that the contributor’s interest is always supreme.”
On his part, the Deputy Chief Executive Officer, NPRA, Mr David Tetteh Armey-Abbey said the Authority aims at investing contributor’s funds to ensure that there is security.
Mr Tetteh said total assets management for tier 2 and 3 private pension fund as at January 31, 2018 was GH?10.9b.