Health Services Workers’ Union battles government over ‘haircut’ on pensions

The Health Services Workers’ Union (HSWU) has vowed to resist any attempt by the government to touch the Pensions of its members.

The General Secretary of the HSWU, Franklin Owusu Ansah, at a press conference held on Sunday said “If the government finds it so important to do the debt restructuring, we will urge them to ring-fence the Pension Funds of workers. Workers of Ghana can’t continue suffering to the grave. Enough is enough!!”

This comes on the back of a leaked report on government modalities of a debt restructuring that will ostensibly bring about ‘haircut’ on bondholders and investors in the capital market.

As part of the debt restructuring for domestic bondholders in terms of interest payments, bondholders will receive zero interest rates in 2023, 5% interest in 2024, and 10% interest in 2025.

In addition to this, the government is set to forward or extend the tenure of all maturing bonds by 10 years.

It came up during a recent meeting between finance minister Ken Ofori-Atta, government officials, and heads of banking institutions in the country.

The HSWU in reaction to the development fears government is tampering with the present and the future of workers who had the hope of sacrificing to have a better future.

The General Secretary said the policy responses to the economic crises by government are bringing untoward hardship to its members and all workers at large as Pensions and Investments have been put at risk by the actions of the government.

“The promulgation of Act 766 was to resolve the problem of inadequate and low Pensions that was received by workers. The second Tier was designed primarily to give contributors higher lump sum benefits. In light of this, anything short of this would be calamitous to workers.

“All these unfolding events bring shivers to the spine of our members who have struggled all these years with meager salaries. The actions and intentions of the government bring to question the principles of investment and saving,” Franklin Owusu Ansah bemoaned.