This year’s National Pensions Awareness Week celebration opened in Accra yesterday with a pledge by the government to support the National Pensions Regulatory Authority (NPRA) to establish zonal offices in all the regions of the country.
Currently, the NPRA has only six zonal offices in Tamale, Takoradi, Sunyani, Kumasi, Tema, and Koforidua.
The Minister of Employment, Labour Relations and Pensions, Ignatius Baffour Awuah, who made the pledge in a solidarity message, said the move was to increase pension coverage in the country.
The Director of Finance and Administration of the Ministry of Employment, Labour Relations and Pensions, Hamidu Adakurugu, read the message on behalf of the sector minister.
According to Mr Awuah, out of the 9.9 million working population, only 2.4 million have registered for pension, leaving 7.5 million workers without pension.
The three-day event, dubbed ‘Pension Fair 2023’, is being organised by the NPRA is on the theme: “My Pension, My Future.”
As part of the programme, there was a fair where companies operating in the pensions industry showcased their products, educated the public on the importance of pensions and provided them opportunity to enrol on pension.
The minister said the creation of more zonal offices would help increase funds of Tier Three from GH¢50 billion to GH¢75 billion by 2024.
Mr Awuah lamented the low pension coverage in the country, especially among informal sector workers.
He noted that the informal sector accounted for 77.1 per cent of the total employed population.
Mr Awuah said the informal sector workers were the “most prone to shocks, and therefore, without coverage of pensions, their plight becomes even more exacerbated.”
The minister said the government would leverage smart technology to streamline pension processes and enrol more people on the scheme.
He commended the NPRA for organising the National Pension Awareness Week celebration, to bring pension to the spotlight.
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the NPRA, Hayford Atta Krufi, said the programme was instituted in 2021 to educate the public on the benefits and importance of pension.
He said the strategic objective of the NPRA was to expand pension coverage from the current six per cent coverage to 40 per cent by 2026.
The CEO of NPRA said his outfit had collaborated with COCOBOD to roll out a pension scheme for cocoa farmers, and when the scheme was fully implemented about 1.5 million cocoa farmers would benefit.
Mr Krufi disclosed that the Authority would soon engage the Ghana Private Road Transport Union and the Ghana Football Association to enrol members on pension.
The Board Chairman of NPRA, Paul Simon Koranteng, said the programme marked an important milestone for the pensions industry in Ghana and the NPRA.
He said pension issues around the globe required the concerted efforts of all stakeholders in order to create public confidence in the pension industry.
Mr Koranteng said there was the need to intensify education on pension, to enable the public understand and appreciate the importance of the scheme.
He said the NPRA had deployed a Risk-Based Supervision System to provide a structured approach focused on identifying potential risk and putting measures to mitigate those risk.
BY KINGSLEY ASARE
