Deputy Secretary General of the Trades Union Congress, Joshua Ansah, has expressed labour’s opposition to government’s proposition to include pension funds in the debt exchange programme.

According to him, during the first round of domestic debt exchange programme, the government and labor unions had signed a memorandum of understanding exempting the pension funds of labour unions from the exchange programme. Due to this, he stated that labour unions would not budge as the initial terms of the MoU with government are still valid.

“Labour Unions in Ghana know only one thing, and that thing is that there has been an MoU signed between us and the government represented by the Finance Ministry and the Minister for Employment and Labour Relations that pensions funds have been exempted from this exercise. That is all what we know.
“We will not do anything contrarily to the already existing MoU between us and the government represented by the Finance Ministry. Yes, we have signed an MoU and we said in that MoU that labour would assist government in finding the best way in also raising some funds in this very exercise.”
Joshua Ansah

Mr Ansah highlighted that labour unions will remain resolute in their opposition to the inclusion of their pension funds and have instead called on the government to implement the strategies labour suggested as an alternate solution to raising and saving money for the government.

Nonetheless, the TUC’s deputy secretary general stated that labour’s suggestions to government has largely gone unheeded.

“Why we said that was that, we have a lot of suggestions we have made to the government. Anytime we make a suggestion to the government aside the pensions, it’s like that suggestion is a no-go area for the government. One, we said that the size of the government is too big and government must try everything to reduce the size of government to make some savings over there.”
Joshua Ansah

Among other things, Mr Ansah explained that there are some expenditures that goes waste in the country and government must take a critical look at that to avid the waste. He revealed that government functionaries are not sacrificing enough and that workers are usually the ones called on to make such sacrifices.

“We also said that if you’re able to collect taxes effectively in this very country, there’ll be no need for us to go to IMF for any bailout. It’s like we have not looked inside our own country and check what we can do to overcome these challenges. But because there’s something that is easy way to go like the workers’ pensions, I think government is focusing too much on the workers’ pensions.”
Joshua Ansah

UTAG kicks against inclusion of pension funds in debt exchange programme

Meanwhile, the University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG) has expressed its opposition to government’s newly proposed alternative offer to include pension funds in the ongoing debt restructuring.

Government has expressed its decision to include pension funds in the programme, which is aimed at alleviating the cash constraints on the government in the coming years, while fully compensating the Pension Funds for the value of their current holdings.

However, in a memo, UTAG emphasized that any move to add pension funds in the debt restructuring programme will overburden its already poor members.

“We are still unable to participate in any intervention that would worsen the plight of the already impoverished Ghanaian University Lecturer. We therefore write to unequivocally reject the request to use our Pension Funds i.e GUSS, SSNIT and any other pension fund that affect our members for the new alternative proposed offer by government.”
University Teachers Association of Ghana

UTAG warned that governmental intransigence in this matter would not be countenanced as it is willing to fight to ensure that no one robs its members of their pensions funds.