When two elephants fight
The Graphic Business recently carried a harrowing story about the future of workers being toyed with due to lack of understanding between the National Pensions Regulatory Authority (NPRA) and Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT). The issue is about how SSNIT is to transfer the lump sums due potential pensioners into the accounts of the beneficiaries with their private scheme managers under the two-tier pension scheme.
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This is part of the transitional arrangements for the new scheme aimed at enhancing the worth of the savings of the individuals to enable them benefit from enhanced pensions. It is true that if SSNIT is not allowed to design a structured transfer of the benefits but compelled to transfer the accrued pensions at a go, its operations could be crippled or grounded. On the other hand, piecemeal and irregular transfer of the contributions will also affect the interest of workers.
That is where I had anticipated the intervention of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in the matter. However, it appears the leadership of TUC does not consider these issues worthy of open discussion and public attention. But it is not for nothing that TUC is represented on a number of public institutions, to bring the interest of organised labour to bear on policy formulation and implementation.
This is the same TUC which stood up to fight the government when a percentage of social security contribution was to be ceded under the National Health Insurance Scheme to provide better health#care for the average worker.
In the recent impasse between some workers’ groups and the government, on disagreement over the handling of the second tier pension scheme, necessitating an industrial action and civil litigation in court, all that the TUC did was to say that it supported the action of the workers. But as it turned out, the funds belonged to all Ghanaian workers who were not yet 55 years at the time the new scheme became operational.
What has the representative of the TUC on the SSNIT board told workers about what is being done towards the transfer of earned lump sum accrued as of the time of the transition? Workers do not know their fate and are fretting but no one is interested in assuaging their distress. What has been discussed at the board level as to the arrangements for the orderly and systematic transfer of their contribution to their preferred scheme managers?
The time has come for the leadership of organised labour to open up to workers about the management of their pension money. The continued and eerie silence of TUC on these matters is worrying. It is even more distressing since the TUC member on the SSNIT board is there in the name of workers.
TUC must give direction and hope to workers that their pension savings will not go waste and that meaning will be given to the new pension scheme to benefit workers more functionally and productively.
Indeed, the time has come for workers to demonstrate that they will not sit down idly and allow their future to be toyed with, especially when SSNIT has stated that it will only be responsible for workers’ contributions actually received in the name of the worker. Workers must approach the issue of pension in the same way that they negotiate under the Collective Bargaining Agreements. The money they earn today is important, so also should they be eager to protect their future incomes.
Both the managements of NPRA and SSNIT must be compelled to do what is just, legitimate and beneficial to the interest of the Ghanaian worker. A clearly defined timetable should be agreed upon between the two institutions with the government and TUC as witnesses. The law became operative and functional in 2010. Those who were 55 at the time of the new scheme would be getting their pensions from next month. It is a time long enough for plans to have been firmed if the interest of the workers had not been taken for granted.
As our elders have succinctly pointed out, when two elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers. We cannot play neutral as these needless and unproductive haggles go on. The TUC representative on the SSNIT board must adequately bring the perspectives of workers to bear on policy. He must equally consistently inform workers of policy implications.
We need to hear something before the end of the year or early next year as to what is being done to transfer our accrued lump sum pensions to independent scheme managers. TUC cannot escape blame for any failures.