The Civil and Local Government Staff Association, Ghana (CLOGSAG) have sent a strong warning to government to stay off its pension funds saying the country have been thrown into an economic crisis and that government has targeted their funds for economic support.

“As workers, we called for a better pensions scheme that would yield reasonable gratuities and lumpsums therefore government must not interfere in the pension funds of the Association” CLOGSAG further warns.

Speaking at the 2023 Mayday celebration on the theme, “Safeguarding Pension Incomes Now, To Avoid Old Age Crisis”, the Deputy Executive Secretary of CLOGSAG, Mr. William Karikari said the Association frowns on government’s attempt to impose its own private pension scheme on public sector workers hence workers are advising government to find other modules and methods to address the economic challenges.

“Organised labour including CLOGSAG engaged government to exempt pension funds from the Domestic Debt Exchange Programme (DDEP)”, he said adding that an attempt by government to go ahead, workers will find it difficult to have easy access on records to its pension funds.

He said CLOGSAG have warded off shrewd consultants attempting to control the privately managed schemes set up by the Association.

The Deputy Executive Secretary disclosed that members who were in the service before January 1st, 2023 have part of the Tier-2 fund in the form of past credits in the custody of SSNIT.

“Negotiations between governments, FORUM and SSNIT resulted in SSNIT adjusting interest rates on past credits although below commercial rates”, he said and again directed SSNIT to transfer all past credits of members within the public sector to their respective schemes as directed by the Labour Commission (NLC) in 2020.

Source: newsghana.com.gh