Sunday,
October 26, 2014
Folks, the impasse over the
management of the second tier of workers' pension funds drags on as the
striking workers dig in and the government struggles to offer credible
explanations to resolve it. Clearly, the government's approach to handling the
impasse falls short and raise eyebrows the more its spokespersons attempt
clarifying issues or justifying the government's unilateral decisions/actions
affecting the interests and the after-service lives of hundreds of thousands of
workers.
Not until the government comes
out with something convincing and reliable to allay the fears, doubts, and
concerns of the workers, I don't think that the impasse can be resolved
amicably. No court action against the workers and their leaders will solve the
problem. Neither will any high-sounding, bombastic, but useless public
utterances that lack substance. And that substance is unmistakable: how much
have the workers contributed toward their pension so far and where is the
money? How secure is that money to guarantee that a worker who retires will get
his/her pension promptly?
Within that context, news reports
alleging that the Employment and Labour Relations Minister Haruna Iddrisu has stated in a media
interaction that the second tier pension contribution of public sector workers
has been invested (in treasury bills) and yielded “very good returns” rather
inflame passions. (See: http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=332163).
Many questions arise therefrom:
Who took that decision to invest workers' funds in such a venture without prior
consent of the contributors? Does the fact that the government is the employer
justify the unilateral action to invest the contributions in that venture?
The truth is that once the
contributions belong to the workers (apparently because the employer has made
provision for that), the sole owners/beneficiaries should be the contributors
(workers) and not the employer. The government doesn't have any fiduciary right
to the contributions to determine how they should be invested or disbursed!!
More crucially, why invest the
funds in treasury bills (a round-robin kind of situation in which the
government takes the contributions to do business with and to return them to
chest with interest)? So, the government is just recycling the contributions in
its own quarters instead of channelling them into productive sectors. Why the
treasury bills? Couldn't more profitable and high-yielding ventures have been
identified for this investment? Many questions.
I remember very well the sordid
practice by District Secretaries (under Rawlings) or the CEOs of the
Metropolitan/Municipal/District Assemblies to invest funds allocated to their
Assemblies in treasury bills, which the government (I think under Mills)
strongly opposed and warned against. The reason was that investing government's
own money in treasury bills was counter-productive. Apparently, some
unscrupulous characters behind such investments ended up slicing off the
interests for themselves. In effect, then, investing in treasury bills isn't an
attractive option. So, why invest workers' contributions therein?
Now, back to some aspects of
Haruna Iddrisu's utterances as reported. He is said to have "charged the
media to conduct investigations at the Central Bank and ascertain if funds have
been disbursed as alleged by some of the workers." A useless assignment!!
The Minister justified government's delay in making payments,
saying the government was seeking to protect the fund against any future risks.
What guarantee is there to support this assertion? Of course, there is ample
reason to raise the level of apprehension, given the instances of corruption
all over the place (GYEEDA, SUBAH, Brazil 2014, and many others). Why shouldn't
the workers be more than afraid?
He also said. "We have over
440 million with the Bank of Ghana yet to be disbursed, it is just the
structure and the mechanism that we disagree on, the president has a duty and
responsibility to protect the fund against any risks." Frightening revelation!! How much is the
total contribution of workers from which 440 million was taken out and invested
in the Bank of Ghana? Too much knee jerking going on here, Mr. Minister!!
Were the workers and their
leaders involved in all these moves? If not, why not? The government isn't
telling the story that workers want to hear.
Would Mr. Iddrisu (or the government, for that matter) have come out to
tell workers the fate of their contributions had they not embarked on this
strike action? Why keep the workers in the dark in a matter that is pivotal to
their future lives? Too bad for the government at this stage.
No wonder, then, that there is no
trust for the government. As has been reported, union members are disturbed
that their leadership have held "countless meetings and interactions"
with the National Pensions Regulatory Authority (the institution mandated to
oversee pensions in Ghana) but such deliberations have been fruitless because
of the inadequacy of trust.
Folks, do you see how this simple
issue is speedily exposing the government's lack of decorum and forthrightness
in dealing with an important issue of this sort? By being so
"unbecoming", it is losing grounds among workers and will be the
loser in the end. The political capital is slipping away, which will be
difficult for the government to claw back unless it levels with workers for
them to know the truth and to be persuaded that something good is in the pipeline
for them.
Already controversies surrounding
conditions of service have made the government unpopular in the estimation of
organized labour. So, why add more to it? Indeed, governance in our time is
worse than a child's play thing. Too much fiddling!!
I shall return…
·
E-mail:
mjbokor@yahoo.com
·
Join
me on Facebook at: http://www.facebook.com/mjkbokor to continue
the conversation.
No comments:
Post a Comment