The National Pensions Regulatory Authority (NPRA) has described Micro Pensions Scheme as the best for the informal sector.
Chief Executive of the Authority, Mr. Hayford Attah Krufi, said the African economy, which was basically informal, would succeed through small scale pension, personal pension, and group personal pension schemes.
He cited countries such as Nigeria, Kenya and Uganda which were progressing in the micro pension sector.
“We in Ghana, especially in the informality of the nature of how we work, the best way to approach pensions is through associations, cooperatives, unions and individual”, he explained.
Speaking at the National Pensions Awareness Week in Kumasi, he said old age poverty, especially, among the informal sector was increasing and there was the need to wipe out the narrative, adding that they constituted about 85 per cent of the population.
Mr. Krufi noted that the NPRA was therefore working hard to raise informal pensions from a low level of three per cent penetration to 40 per cent penetration in the next five years.
The Awareness week was targeted at deepening educating and sensitising Ghanaians on the tier-three pensions in relation to the informal sector.
It is also aimed at bridging the knowledge gap among some key stakeholders to improve participation in pensions and retirement planning.
The programme targeted associations of traders, drivers, tailors and dressmakers, hairdressers and beauticians, vulcanizers, woodworkers and the Trades Union Congress (TUC).
Mr. Ignatius Baffour-Awuah, Minister for Employment and Labour Relations, said pension schemes had become necessary in the development of Ghana which was why president Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo recently inaugurated Cocoa Farmers’ Pension Scheme.
He debunked the notion that pension plans were only for those in the formal sector, and explained one did not have to be a salary worker before enrolling on pension schemes.
The Minister implored employees to demand information about their contributions towards pensions.
