
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo is noted for pooh-poohing critical national conversations in spiting Mahama. Well, the ripples of the 2012 Election Petition is still with us. The NDC stole the verdict and partied when the NPP griped, calling Jake and Dan Botwe and co fools, courtesy of Dr Kwadwo Afari-Gyan’s Ananse arithmetic.
That reminds me of JA Kufour and President Jerry John Rawlings. Sometimes, out of the blue, Jerry Rawlings would take a jibe at JAK. You try to find out what may have triggered that uppercut, and you realised that the jitters may have developed over the JEA Mills defeat in 2000 that gave JJR sleepless nights.
Well, Rawlings would be extending that act of discourtesy to ‘That Man’. It took time before JJR would be displacing that on John Mahama after the death and burial of JEA Mills. Let’s just say it is an occupational hazard or symptom of King Solomon’s ‘reckless wives’ manifesting today in Accra, Ghana, West Africa and Africa.
LBGTQ+ and Illegal mining
Interestingly, the President has been known and accepted to have remained incommunicado during the conversation of the controversial LGBTQ+. He either engaged in doublespeak or was purely evasive.
At diplomatic levels, on political platforms and before traditional and religious leaders, he was evasive. It was only in one instance that he tactfully referenced on traditional African values to make his point. He wouldn’t, after that, explain anything – though his Legislature had settled on the matter.
But the experts say he did not by that break any constitutional laws or violate any principles of political integrity by not signing the bill into law.
I believe it was the same posture over the illegal mining controversy in which the Minister was left alone or marooned in explaining efforts to reclaim, restore, reform space and realign the laws to replace illegality with inclusivity.
What changed?
But we may ask what changed and the President decided after all that SSNIT money is workers’ money and that the Ghana Trades Union Congress GTUC could – together with state and non-state partners in the insurance sector engage in finding a solution to the impasse in which a the Kwahu-based Rock City Hotel is cited for expressing interest in a state-owned insurance entity and asset that is massive and fluid and profitable.
This is how one of the online portals put the story: President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has tasked the Minister for Employment and Labour Relations to liaise with the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) and the National Pensions Regulatory Authority (NPRA) to bring finality to all outstanding pension issues in the next three (3) months.
Addressing the 2019 May Day Celebration on Wednesday, May 1, 2019, at the Black Star Square, President Akufo-Addo noted that the critical contribution of labour to the production process, economic growth and sustained development requires that the dignity of labour is maintained throughout retirement.
“We will build a robust economy and a prosperous society, when we put in place a sustainable pension scheme for all workers. For far too many of our people, the end of their lives is marked by poverty. Too many people either have no pensions at all or have inadequate pensions to match the needs of old age,” the President said.
In the informal sectors of the economy, President Akufo-Addo lamented that “most people work, without any thought to pension coverage, and when they no longer have the strength to work, their lives become miserable.”
With about about 90% of workers operating in the informal sector, the President indicated that attention must be focused on extending access to that sector in compliance with the National Pension law. Well, I don’t know how long and how often we would be making that point, without living it.
Tomato Traders
How important social protection is for an emerging economy like Ghana is reflected in the saga of ordinary tomato traders in an engagement with the Burkina Faso administration some 12 years ago, mooting the idea of producers and traders running a scheme in an accord in which the Ghana Embassy in Ouagadougou played key role.
As I do this piece, I know SSNIT has been engaging the national association in reactivating its Informal Sector Scheme together with other Market Association actors in strengthening its financial base to cover the over 75 per cent underserviced sector. That certainly is a move forward, if it can be activated from farm gate through Markets to neighbourhood table top actors.
Again, how important it is to ordinary citizens and particularly informal economy actors is manifest in the GTUC itself attempting a solution by linking Market Associations with financial and insurance agencies as a step to reducing informality, but also enhancing the social protection space.
According to the President, too, cocoa producers are being targeted in an effort to establish a Cocoa Farmers Pension Scheme.
State’s hand in every pie
What has been worrying out typical West African governments is the saga of lack of capacity and inability to structure our revenue mobilisation sectors to deliver. Worse is that government most of the time more quick at putting its hands into every pie that it forgets that a pie takes effort and resources to bake.
In addressing holistically that deficit and offering an abiding remedy, I believe the President Akufo-Addo acted wisely in referring, first and foremost, the matter to Government’s social partners, employers and enterprise owners to comply with existing pension regulations and support their staff to contribute to pension schemes.
“We should all spread the news about the importance of pensions and the structures in place to ensure transparent and effective management of pension funds,” he added.
And am glad he admitted that we have to begin doing things differently when he urged the Ministry of Finance to arrange for the payment of GH¢200million and a bond of GH¢700 million [government has borrowed from SSNIT] towards settling of the arrears owed to SSNIT. This, he said, will leave arrears of GH¢800 million which will be included in next year’s budget.
Social Partnership Council
Reiterating government’s determination to consolidate further its relations with the social partners, in the post IMF era, President Akufo-Addo noted that a landmark social partnership agreement with Organised Labour represented by the Trades Union Congress, the Ghana Employers’ Association, has been signed.
This, he explained, is to provide a medium for building a sense of cohesion, trust, self-management, frank and open discussions to champion the course of development towards realising the vision of a Ghana Beyond Aid.
Blustering Okudzeto
North Tongu Member of Parliament, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa has criticised President Akufo-Addo’s approach to addressing the opposition to the controversial sale of four hotels by the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) to Rock City Hotels Limited, owned by Agriculture Minister, Bryan Acheampong. He must be politically correct, though he must admit that the referencing of the matter to the GTUC should settle the matter.
Although organised labour is represented by four members on the 12-member board of SSNIT, President Akufo-Addo has asked the Labour and Employment Minister to engage them again on their concerns regarding the transaction.
Organised Labour had petitioned the president to halt the sale of the hotels to the minister cum Member of Parliament.
According to Ablakwa, the president’s directive to the Employment and Labour Relations Minister, Ignatius Baffour Awuah to engage with labour leaders is unnecessary. He argues that the president is avoiding his responsibility and pretending he lacks the authority to resolve this issue with a single directive.
But this is not about directive. It is engagement in arriving at a consensus that generates policy in providing an abiding framework and solution to the headache of gnawing informality confronting the nation and its development agenda.
PS
Tweaking SSNIT to explore
As for SSNIT, it is time they moved out of the comforts of their offices to turbulent environment and compete with Enterprise Trustees and others in strengthening their revenue base.
They cannot do it alone, without creating agencies and outlets and involving the framer and trader and Market Associations at accost to them. Creating assets and selling them off is not the best. It doesn’t tell a good story about CEOs in the public sector in Ghana.
But the buyer of the controversial assets, now hounded both by the Majority and Minority, must appreciate that it is in his interest to say No. On account of ABC and D, I as a conscientious citizen, decide to walk away from the deal for the sake of Ghana.
That is the only way to mute the Martin Kpebus and Okudzeto Ablakwasor Sammy Gyamfis and political fingerlings salivating on controversy to learn how to rattle English, instead of how to work for themselves to impact their families, neighbourhoods, communities and the nation.
Source: Abena Baawuah