GNAT appeals to government to review biometric exercise for pensioners

The Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), on Wednesday appealed to the Government to consider reviewing the biometric exercise embarked upon by the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, to check payroll fraud in the payment of pensioners in the public sector.

A release signed by Mr Peter Korda, Public Relations Officer, GNAT, copied to Ghana News Agency, said while the association considered the rationale behind the exercise as laudable as it led to a clean payroll system to reflect the actual wage bill of government, care must be taken to ensure that others who through no fault of theirs could not be captured in the exercise, were not inconvenienced.

It said investigations conducted by GNAT revealed that some pensioners captured as 'ghosts' actually did exist; some of the pensioners were found to be invalids, others were staying in very remote parts of the country while some had travelled outside the shores of the country.

“It is in the light of this that GNAT appeals to Government to give the exercise a humane face in order not to aggravate the already deplorable conditions under which some of these pensioners who toiled during their working lives to place this country at its present level, live”.

GNAT believed that education on the biometric exercise to capture pensioners was not extensively done as it did not get to the nook and cranny of the country to take care of those in the very remote areas.

"The centres for registrations are really insufficient while a great number of pensioners do not get access to the national dailies regularly."

The release noted that the exercise did not affect only retired teachers in the country but military personnel, the police and other public sector workers as well; GNAT therefore, made the appeal on behalf of all such affected retirees.

It said: “We hope that this will be considered and acted upon with dispatch by the appropriate authorities. The nation owes it as a duty to its pensioners to ensure that they live the rest of their earthly life under minimum stress.”**