Guidelines on three-tier voluntary scheme to be ready this March

Accra, March 19, GNA - Guidelines for transactional arrangements on the three-tier voluntary scheme designed for companies with Provident Funds targeting the informal sector associations is to be out by end of March.

Mr Seth Terkpeh, Deputy Minister for Finance and Economic Planning who announced this on Thursday said the scheme is to bring together farmers, fishermen, chop bar operators and drinking bar operators to enable them to save towards their retirements. Mr Terkpeh was answering questions on the floor of parliament on Thurs= day.

Responding to a question by Mr Robert Sarfo Mensah, member for Asunafo North, who wanted to know what was causing the delay in the implementation of the scheme, Mr Terkpeh denied any delay in the process.

He noted that the scheme was one of the constitutional provisions that a new pension scheme should be put in place to enable both workers in the formal and informal sectors have income security in their old age when they can no longer have the strength to work. Mr Terkpeh said when the NDC government came into office on January 2009 there was a pension reform implementation committee already in place, adding this body started the implementation process in accordance with section 221 of Act 766 pending the appointment of the Board of National Pensions Regulatory Authority. In August 2009, the Board was commissioned and on September 16, 2009 President Atta Mills launched the new scheme at the National Theatre.

He noted that before the launch of the scheme, however, the Board had already started working with the Pension Reform Implementation Committee on the new Pension Act for board members, employers, organized labor and SSNIT. This was based on the recommendation of the white paper on the report of the Presidential Commission on Pensions on the transitional arrangements for the new scheme. The work of the board was to complete all the transitional arrangement approved by government in the White Paper to enable a smooth commencement of the new scheme, which the President announced would begin from January 2010.

To get the stakeholder well informed and to participate in the new scheme, the Board prepared guidelines for the transitional arrangement for the mandatory first and second tiers scheme. He said the guidelines were launched at a Meet-The-Press session in December 2009 together with the implementation time table of the scheme to begin January 2010.

He said before the launch of the guidelines and time table the Board had held a meeting with SSNIT, the SSNIT Informal Sector Fund Management, the security services, the Ghana Armed Forces, the Ghana Employers Association, Organised Labour and key MDAs. He said the Board further organized media education programme in Accra for senior editors and editors, radio and television presenters, reporters and public relations officers in the MDAs to empower them to educate the public. Similar fora were organized for service providers such as banks, insurance companies and interested investors. 19 March 10