Tier Two Pension Scheme grosses ¢1.64 billion

Funds under the controversial Tier Two pension scheme have grossed ¢1.64 billion, Chairman of the National Pensions Regulatory Commission has revealed.

Laud Senanu said the figure represents contributions from the public, private sector workers as well as the investment component.

Public sector workers are up in arms against government, over the Tier Two pension scheme and are demanding full disclosure and a complete control over the management of funds accrued to the scheme.

In the past few weeks, public sector workers have been demanding to know where their funds have been lodged, how much has been accrued and who are behind the Pensions Alliance Trust, the company government appointed to manage the tier two pension fund on behalf of the workers.

In their anger, 12 public sector workers unions, declared an indefinite strike, bringing the country's education and health sectors on their knees.

Employment Minister Haruna Iddrisu in an attempt to assure the workers that their monies are safe, said a total of 440 million cedis had accrued to the fund.

But the workers were not convinced. They did not understand how a fund they began contributing to since 2010 had grossed only 440 million cedis.

Per the Pensions Act, five per cent of the workers' salary has to be deducted into a tier two pension scheme whilst the employer contributes 13 percent to SSNIT.

The new law was passed in 2008; with the year of implementation being 2010.

The first batch of contributors under the tier two pension scheme are supposed to retire in 2015 and the workers want to be assured that their contributions are safe and sound before they go on retirement.

Addressing a press conference in Accra, Thursday, the chairman of the National Pensions Regulatory Commission, Laud Senanu, said the workers' contributions are lodged safely into the Temporary Pension Fund Account (TPFA) at the Bank of Ghana.

Joy Business' Emmanuel Adjei who was at the press conference reported Mr Senanu as saying that the 1.64 billion cedis is in three components.

The first is the private sector workers' contributions which were paid to SSNIT and later transferred into the TPFA. That amount has grossed a total of 521,885,987.36 cedis.

The second is the public sector workers' contributions paid to the Controller and Accountant General's Department and later transferred to TPFA. That has also grossed  488,768,270.73 cedis and the third is the investment component which has grossed over 600 million cedis- all amounting to 1,641,11,027.70 cedis.

Laud Senanu said there is an overlapping membership of schemes with some workers belonging to different scheme managers.

The NPRA has had to freeze all schemes until the misunderstanding between the workers and government is resolved, he stated.