Parliament approves Pensions Bill

Parliament has approved the National Pensions Bill, 2021, which seeks to amend the National Pensions Act,2008 (Act 766) to exclude the security services from the pension unication process envisaged under section 213 of Act 766.

According to the report of the Committee on Employment, Social Welfare and State Enterprises on the National Pensions (Amendment)Bill,2021 the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations established a Joint Technical Committee on the Uni cation of Pensions to develop the required technical instruments for uni cation.

As a result of the challenges associated with the uni cation process, it is necessary to amend Act 766.

The object of the bill is to exclude the Police Service, the Immigration Service, the Prisons Service, the Security and Intelligence Agencies and the Ghana National Fire Service from the uni cation of pensions.

Parliament’s Committee was informed that the subsection (2) of section 213 of Act 766 mandates the Board of the National Pensions Regulatory Authority to ensure uni cation of all pension schemes and the full operationalization of the

Three-Tier pension scheme for all public sector workers, excluding the Ghana Armed Forces.

Further, an attempt at the unication of pensions during the payment of lump-sum bene ts to the rst batch of retirees from the security services under Tier 2 of the Three-Tier Pension Scheme in 2020 was fraught with massive employee data veri cation challenges, which stalled the entire uni cation process.

As a result of the challenges that emerged during the pension uni cation exercise and the unique nature of the security services in general, the

Ministry recommended excluding the security agencies from the uni cation process to pave the way for establishing a separate regime to govern pensions in the security and intelligence sector.

The amendment the report states would automatically reinstate the previous occupational pension schemes of the security services under CAP 30, which was the source of inequities in the delivery of pensions in Ghana.

The Bill seeks to reinstate the following enactments and schemes which ceased to be in force under the National Pension Act,2008 (Act 776) : Ghana Police

Pensions Act,1985 (PNDCL 165), Immigration Service Pensions Act,1986 (PNDCL 226),Prisons Service Pensions Act,1987 (PNDC 168),Section 34 of the Security and Intelligence agencies Act,1996 (Act 526) and Section 27 of the National Fire Service Act,2000 (Act 537).

The government was expected to institute measures to migrate bene ciaries of the associated public pension schemes onto the Three-Tier Pension Scheme by the expiration of the transitional period in 2014. However, by January 1,2015, the government had not put in place adequate measures for the uni cation of the public sector pensions.