NPRA boss calls for review of Ghana's pension age

The Chief Executive of the National Pensions Regulatory Authority, Mr. Hayford Atta Krufi, has raised concerns about the need for the country to relook its retirement age.

The National Pension Act currently provides for both full and partial pensions.

Full pension workers must have attained 60 years of age but an early pension is also available to workers from the age of 55 years with at least 180 months (15 years) of contributions.

Speaking on Joy TV’s PM Express on Thursday, Mr Atta Krufi said Ghana’s current retirement age must be re-strategized to prevent losses in both human and financial resources.

“If you train an expert and the person can give a lot more at 60 and you ask them to go home, they will go into some consultancy and they may even come back to the same business and charge you higher.”

He urged Ghana to take a cue from Europe’s retirement regime.

“In Europe, a lot of countries within the European Union have revised their pension ages and [for the] UK, it’s almost like every year they revise it, because the women live longer.”

Mr Atta Krufi, therefore, advised that the country start the conversation on a possible revision of the retirement age to help the nation benefit from the expertise of its well-experienced employees.

“So when you’re having the conversation, it’s not just all of a sudden everybody is going to retire at 64 or 65 or 66, but it is phased so those who are born at a certain age will retire at a certain age and then those who are born later will retire at a certain age and then gradually, we will have that increase in retiring age. That is how it was done in Europe and in the UK. And I think that as a nation we need to look at that,” he explained.