Some stakeholders have called on the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) to intensify public education on the Tier Three pension scheme to attract more members to join.

According to the stakeholders, this would help educate more informal sector workers about the existence of the Tier Three Pension Scheme in the country.

The call was made by participants at a stakeholder meeting organised by SSNIT at Sunyani to discuss ways of extending coverage of the social security scheme to the self-employed workers in the country. Meanwhile, the participants included market women, artisans, electronics and musicians.

A 60-year-old tomato seller who gave her name as Linda Asare, lauded SSNIT for the initiative, and gave the assurance that she would share information about the scheme with her colleague traders. She indicated that she never heard of the existence of tier three pension scheme, but the meeting made her know. She thus, said “SSNIT must step up education about SSNIT and the existence of tier three.”

Mr Benjamin Osei, self-employed, also called for a review of the age limit for people in the informal sector regarding the scheme. He disclosed that the 15 to 45 years age limit rule by SSNIT has prevented a lot of people from joining the scheme. According to him, the age limit should either be opened or adjusted to 50 years for those in the informal sector to enable more people to join the scheme.

Informal Sector Still Underrepresented

The Chief Actuary of SSNIT, Mr Joseph Poku, disclosed that the Bono and Ahafo regions have only 800 people currently contributing to the scheme. He promised that SSNIT would ensure the figure increase from the current number to at least 200,000 in the next few years. Meanwhile, he noted that as of December 2021, the active membership of the SSNIT pension scheme was just a little over 1.7 million out of an estimated workforce of 11.5 million. About 99 per cent of these members, Mr Poku stated, are employees of both public and private institutions, though majority of workers in the country are self-employed and or in the informal sector.

The Chief Actuary intimated that the scheme provides benefits such as old age pension, invalidity pension and survivors benefit in the event of death. He added that the Tier 1 contributions could be done either daily, weekly, monthly or yearly.

The General Manager in charge of operations at SSNIT, Mr Kingsley Agyei Manu, also asked the participants to consider social security as an insurance to fall on in times of need. He posited that more Ghanaians have become health conscious, prolonging their life expectancy and hence the need to prepare for eventualities.

Meanwhile, the stakeholders meeting is a new programme introduced by SSNIT to educate the working population on the importance of pension contribution. Last month, it was held in the Eastern region and was attended by stakeholders from different backgrounds including GPRTU.