Tertiary workers demand tier 2 pension arrears with interest
By Daniel NONOR, Accra
The Senior Staff Association of Public Universities is demanding the immediate payment of arrears for their Tier 2 pensions, along with accrued penalties.
The Association has declared an ongoing strike and insists it will continue until all outstanding issues related to their pensions are resolved.
The strike is a response to the government’s failure to address concerns regarding pensions and the wrongful cancellation of overtime allowances.
Isaac Donkoh, the National Chairman of the Association, explained in an interview with The New Finder that while issues concerning overtime allowances have been resolved, the main problem regarding their Tier 2 pensions, which have been in arrears for the past ten months, persists.
The Association demands the immediate payment of their Tier 2 pensions along with associated penalties, which include a three percent penalty component on the amount owed.
Additionally, some members of the Association who retired from 2020 to 2023 are yet to receive their full pension lump sum due to the government’s inability to pay their contributions to the Board of Trustees. The Association insists that these affected staff should be paid their lump sum immediately.
Donkoh highlighted another outstanding issue where the government paid simple interest on defaulted pension payments to some members instead of the 3 percent penalty that had accrued on the amount owed.
The Association is demanding that proper calculations of those penalties be done, and the appropriate 3 percent penalty be applied.
Donkoh argued that the amount owed is within the government’s means to meet and characterized the demands as straightforward.
He questioned, “You have taken money from my salary which I am supposed to earn by law. You have done the deduction, so what is the difficulty in giving the money to the fund managers?”
In a related development, the Ghana Association of University Administrators of the University of Ghana has also joined the strike action, demanding the payment of their delayed Tier 2 pensions with compound interest and better conditions of service.
The government has scheduled a meeting with the unions on Thursday, February 1, 2024, to resolve the issues.
