Pension scheme for drivers

The Deputy Minister of Transport, Mrs. Dzifa Aku Ativor announced at Ho recently that the government was considering the possibility of establishing a Pension scheme for drivers in the country, to enable them live comfortably after retiring from the profession. According to the Minister, since drivers do not have long term job security, they tend to overload their vehicles in order to make more money, thereby causing accidents and subsequent loss of lives.

The Chronicle sees this initiative as a laudable one, which if implemented, would go a long way to solve the poverty situation of drivers in the country. It is an undisputable fact that most of the people working in the informal sector do not know or see the need to invest towards their future. This is happening because they have not been properly educated to understand what such an investment means for them, especially when they become old and can no longer work.

The state has the responsibility to ensure that these people are well prepared for retirement and would not solely depend on their children or other family members for survival in their old age. The Chronicle does not think the implementation of such a policy would be difficult because majority of commercial drivers in the country belong to transport unions.

It would therefore be easy for the leaders of the transport unions to take the money from the drivers and pay it into the fund that would be set up. Just as it is operated by the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT), transport owners who employ these drivers must also be made to pay a certain percentage of money on behalf of their employees into the fund. When the driver becomes unemployed after being hooked onto the scheme, he should be allowed to rejoin when he later gets a vehicle to drive. Whilst commending the government for conceiving such a noble idea, The Chronicle thinks it would be unfair if the policy is limited to only drivers.

A similar scheme must also be set up for other workers in the informal sector, especially cocoa farmers. During the 2008 presidential elections, Nana Akufo-Addo, then Presidential candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), promised to establish a pension scheme for cocoa farmers so that they would not become destitute after attaining old age.

In January this year, we used this column to advise the Atta Mills government about the need to implement the policy. Cocoa is said to be the backbone of Ghana's economy, yet workers in the sector are among the poorest in the country. Educating their children is sometimes a big problem for them. Their lives also become miserable when they grow old and can no more work on the farms.

Since farmers sell their products to identifiable agencies such as the Produce Buying Company (PBC) and other private cocoa purchasers, it would be easy for managers of the cocoa farmers pension scheme to deduct a certain percentage of each bag of cocoa that the farmer would sell, and manage the money for their future benefits.

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