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Ashanti Regional Health Services Workers’ Union On Council’s Resolution On The 2nd Tier Occupational Pension Scheme

By Ashanti Regional Health Services Workers’ Union
Press Statement Ashanti Regional Health Services Workers Union On Councils Resolution On The 2nd Tier Occupational Pension Scheme
OCT 15, 2014 LISTEN

We members of the Ashanti Regional Council of the Health Services Workers' Union (HSWU) of TUC – Ghana, representing more than eight thousand (8000) Health workers across the region appreciate with concern the efforts of our National Leadership to ensure that our pension rights as workers are protected especially with the passage into law of Act 766 of 2008. We do hereby today October 14th , 2014 resolve as follows:

1. As members of the Health Sector Occupational Pensions Scheme (HSOPS), we have agreed to and have full confidence in the appointment of the Service Providers contracted by our Board of Trustees (BOT). We have the uttermost confidence in our BOT to manage our 2nd Tier Pension funds on our behalf and are therefore calling on Government to stay away from imposing any Trust on us as workers. We are resolved.

2. We would like to state emphatically that the spirit and letter of the pension's reform process that gave birth to Act 766 of 2008 was for workers or contributors to pensions scheme to participate directly in the management of their pension. We are therefore fully aware that as members of a defined contributory pension scheme, we bear any risk associated with its operation, just like any other investment scheme but not our employer or Government. We are therefore calling on Government to stop touting that it is the employer that guarantees pensions and that if Government want to guarantee any pension scheme, he should look into and correct the rot and shambolic management going on at the Social Security and National Investment Trust (SSNIT) which Government controls.

3. As the National Pensions Act of 2008 envisaged and sets out to do, we are ready to stand by the law and take our future as workers into our own hands. We are therefore calling on the National Pensions Regulatory Authority (NPRA), the Bank of Ghana (BOG) and the Controller & Accountant Generals' Department (CAGD) for transparency and accountability in the operation of the Temporary Pension Fund (TPF) Account at BOG which by the law, has outlived its usefulness and currently being operated illegally.

4. Section 218 of the National Pensions Act of 2008 requires that within ninety (90) days of the setting up of the various public sector schemes, the NPRA shall transfer all contributions and credits to the appointed Trustees. We therefore call on Government, NPRA and the CAGD to respect the law and start remitting our 5% mandatory contribution into our Custodial Account immediately.

5. We are very much aware that some of our members would retire from active service from January, 2015 and have to collect their lump sum from the 2nd Tier Pension scheme, yet the institutional arrangement needed to facilitate the process is unavailable due to Government's feet dragging in releasing our funds locked up at the BOG to our Managers for the needed investment.

6. We are prepared to defend our rights to Social Protection under Act 766 as well as our rights as workers having valid contracts of employment with the State under Act 651. The State or Government as our employer does not mean that we as workers are slaves to the State and so Government can use State power to abuse our rights. We are therefore calling on Government to allow the various registered 2nd Tier schemes within the public service to operate as by law established and further stop any steps to impose Pensions Alliance Trust (PAT) on public sector workers.

7. That we shall resist all attempts to impose any Company on us as our National Anthem enjoins us as Ghanaians to resist oppressor's rule as any imposition will defeat the whole purpose of the Pensions Reform process.

8. If Government does not act quickly to allow all registered 2nd Tier schemes within the public service to operate freely without any interference being it Political or Administrative, we will advise ourselves as workers and owners of the schemes. We are resolved.

Signed on behalf of the Regional Council by:
Badu-Boateng Ernest
Ashanti Regional Chairman-HSWU of TUC-Ghana
0244567332 / 0269517126

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