By Gilbert Azeem Tiroog
Bolgatanga, May 28, GNA – The National Pension Regularity Authority (NPRA), has built the capacity of journalists and media practitioners in the Upper East Region on the new Three-Tier Pension Scheme.
The participants, drawn from various media houses across the region, were taken through the relevance of pensions, the background to the pension reforms, the objectives of the scheme, coverage and exemptions, and the Three-Tier Pension Scheme, among others.
It aimed at building their capacity to enable them to report comprehensively on issues of pension, help create public awareness and understanding about the pension scheme and promote public participation in the scheme.
The training also focused on positioning the media practitioners to address the concerns and misconceptions about the scheme to the public by providing accurate and well-researched information using their various platforms.
Mr Yakubu Alhassan Salifu, the Zonal Head of the five regions of the Northern Ghana (Northern, Savannah, North East, Upper East and Upper West Regions), NPRA, said the aging population was increasing and it was important that they got to understand the pension scheme to have a heal
To advance this course, Mr Salifu said, the media practitioners who were at the forefront of disseminating information to the public to be equipped with the requisite knowledge about the scheme to inform and well educate the public.
He said there was lack of knowledge by most employers about Tier-Two pension scheme, which was mandatory for all formal sector employees but was privately managed and designed primarily to give contributors lump sum benefits than previously available under the SSNIT pension scheme.
That, he highlighted, needed to be addressed, and the Authority, in the coming months, would visit institutions to ensure Tier Two of their employees were paid.
The Zonal Head also emphasised that provisions had been made in the Third-Tier voluntary personal pensions scheme to cater for the peculiar needs of workers in the informal sector.
“This means that farmers, market women, and traders, among others, can now participate in a pension scheme that would take care of them in their old age,” he stated.
Apart from the engagement with the journalists, the NPRA also engaged market women to educate them about the scheme and the need for them to join it to be catered for at their old age.
GNA