Invest and pay your SSNIT contributions to prevent retirement pressures - GNAT to teachers

Many public servants, including teachers, often experience serious financial challenges after retirement due to their failure to prepare adequately for life after active service, which often leads to their untimely demise shortly after retirement.

To prevent its members from facing this unfavorable experience, the Ho district of the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) in the Volta Region organized a one-day financial literacy training programme for its members to educate and help them prepare adequately for retirement.

Speaking in an interview with the media, the Ho District secretary of GNAT, Wisdom Mawutor Boima, said encouraging teachers to invest and advising them to take their SSNIT contributions seriously will go a long way toward preventing teachers from going through such an experience after retirement.

According to him, all through his service as the district secretary of the association, he has seen teachers who do not prepare adequately for their retirement, mentally or physically.

He furthered that some of these teachers think they have a lot of time to retire, which sometimes causes some to pass on after a year or two after their retirement.

The situation has made GNAT consider it necessary to have a programme that will have its members educated about financial literacy to help manage their finances properly, make investments, and take their SSNIT contributions seriously.

During the event, officials from SSNIT took the members through details about SSNIT, including its benefits, terms and conditions for accessing benefits after service, and how to address issues that they may face in the process of making contributions and receiving their claims.

Participants were also educated by some of the officials from the teachers' fund office on how to access and use the fund to address their financial needs.

A rep from IC Securities also took the teachers through ways they can manage and invest their money in a way that will bring them the best results both in the short run and after active service.

Adding her voice to the charge, the district chairperson for Ho district GNAT, Lois Tipong-Asare, said that most teachers do not know the best ways to manage their finances, which often leads some to fall victim to get-rich-quick schemes where they eventually get scammed.