Ghana’s pension authority now has the power to prosecute companies that don’t pay their employees’ pensions

The threat of prosecution comes after the Attorney General recently gave the pensions regulator prosecutorial powers to go after companies that default in their workers’ tier-2 pensions.

The National Pensions Act 2008, Act 766, established a three-tier pension scheme consisting of three levels of contributions.

The mandatory first tier is remitted to Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) with the tier-two, which is equally compulsory, paid on workers’ behalf by employers and managed by Private Pension Service Providers.

The contribution is pegged at 5% of the employee’s basic monthly salary. This cost is borne by the employee.

The CEO of the National Pensions Regulatory Authority, Hayford Atta Krufi in an interview revealed that employers that default in paying the tier-2 pension will no longer escape from the clutches of the law. “NPRA has now been given the powers to prosecute by the Attorney-General.”

According to him, the authority introduced the prosecution policy to make sure that all workers who contribute to pension have retirement income security, and also ensure that every employer by law is contributing towards pensions.

“We have 18.5 per cent of workers salary which should go towards pension mandatorily”, he said adding that, “Thirteen and a half per cent will go to SSNIT and then 2.5 per cent of that will go to the National Health Insurance Scheme and then 5 per cent will go towards their occupational pension scheme.”

He further noted that “The law says that if an employer fails to remit then they should be prosecuted. We have been assigned specific courts that the prosecution can take place. Very soon all employers who are deducting but not remitting or not even deducting the mandatory 5 per cent at all are going to face strict sanctions.”