According to Joshua Ansah, the Deputy Secretary General of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), it is essential that worker pay be raised to secure better pension benefits, which is the reason behind their latest requests.
He spoke to SSNIT representatives at Koforidua on the sidelines of a TUC engagement.
“You receive what you put into it. Therefore, if you haven’t been earning a good wage, you should prepare for a poor pension in the future. In order to get a higher and expanded pension when we retire from work, we wish to increase our wage.
The engagement between the TUC and SSNIT was to help deal with misconceptions on contributions towards SSNIT and pension scheme, among others.
TUC’s Deputy Secretary General pointed out that their demands for the cost of living allowance (COLA) and other conditions of service would not be backed down by comments from a section of the public.
“You gave us four percent in 2021, seven percent in 2022, what is the inflation rate now? We are back to zero. So if we are asking 20 percent of COLA to cushion us whiles we negotiate for 2023, why should anyone say it’s a wrong time, then that person is not a Ghanaian. Workers are suffering.”
The Acting Chief Actuary of SSNIT, Joseph Poku, cautioned employees against conniving with employers to shortchange the declaration of basic pay towards the SSNIT scheme.
“What you declare as basic pay is what we calculate SSNIT contributions from. Encourage your employees to consolidate your allowance to the basic pay so that your contribution to the SSNIT can be big enough because what you put in determines what you get after pension.”
Some pensioners and members of TUC shared their views and made demand to employers and government.
“We are happy about this engagement, we pray government to increase salaries and actuals of what it pays, so that we can have a better pension scheme.”
Another added, “Our grievances is that when active workers pay is increased, what we receive as pensioners should also be increased. All that we need is for SSNIT to cater for us well. Most of our members are dying, we want to enjoy before we go to Our Creator.”
A total of 1.7mllion of the nation’s work force populace pay towards SSNIT contributions; 63 percent from the private sector and 36 percent from the public sector with the informal sector being the least.
