Pensions in Ghana already bad, debt restructuring is a problem – Dr. Serebour

The President of the Ghana Medical Association, Dr. Frank Serebour, has lamented the current conditions of pension schemes in Ghana.

His concerns come after the announcement by the government to restructure its debts. According to him, touching the already bad pensions of workers will be a negative impact on their livelihoods.

He added that the government has not shown in any form that the country is going through a crisis.

He explained, “Pensions in this country are very bad…If you take a look at the budget itself, we’re told that the cedi has depreciated by almost about 53%. Essentially if you have 1000ghana cedis currently, what you have actually in terms of value is less than 53%.

“And so, if you look at our pensions that are already suffering and we’re going to go through this process of debt restructuring with even in terms of bonds yielding zero percentage points come 2023 and the 5% 2024 and then 10% and so forth and so on. It is quite a problem,” he is quoted by myjoyonline.com.

He also added that some government projects which have not been discontinued have shown that the government is only interested in cutting costs that affect citizens and not itself.

“My own Ministry, which is the Ministry of Health, as we speak, three ministers, that is a substantive Minister and two deputies. Is there no way we can cut? So essentially government has not shown that we are in crisis,” he added.

SSD/FNOQ