The General Secretary of the People National Convention (PNC), Janet Nabla, is quoted by classfmonline.com as saying that should his party come to power in future, it will reduce the pension age from 60 to 50 years.
“A PNC government will review the pension scheme and make it attractive and equally reduce the pension age from 60 to 50 to make way for a youthful working population,” she was quoted as saying on behalf of her party. She also promised that “a future PNC government shall ensure the salary of workers is enough to meet their needs.”
“We shall put in place policies to cut down the import of goods that could be produced locally to create more jobs for Ghanaians, while embarking on major value-addition to our raw products such as cocoa, cashew, etc., to further create employment in the country,” she said.
Youth unemployment is a major problem confronting the developing world, and here in Ghana, experts say it is a serious threat to our national security. In view of this, any political party that will promise to address the challenge will be welcomed. In our view, however, it is preposterous for Ms Nabla to state that a future PNC government will create employment for the youth by reducing the pension age from 60 years to 50.
We stand for correction though, but we are yet to read or hear that a country on this planet Earth has pegged its pension age at 50. If politicians have nothing to say, they better keep quiet than to come out with ideas that have no link with modernity. The retirement age for the largest economy in the world, USA, is 66 years, and that of UK is also 66 years. In Canada the pension age is 65, whilst Japan has just approved a law pushing the pension age from 65 to 70 years.
Here in Africa, South Africa and Nigeria have pegged their retirement age at 60, the same as Ghana. We have deliberately cited examples from both developed and developing countries to prove a point – that nowhere in the world has any country set the retirement age at 50. The fact that another May Day has come does not mean that a political party must, at all costs, issue a statement if it has nothing to say.
It is, however, important to stress that this is not the first time our politicians are promising the moon. Indeed, in 1999 and 2000, the then New Patriotic Party (NPP) presidential candidate, Mr John Agyekum Kufuor, severely criticised the Jerry John Rawlings’ ‘elephant size’ government and promised that it would never happen under him. When Ghanaians bought the idea and voted for him, not only did he equal ministers appointed by Rawlings, but actually exceeded them.
Enter the late President J.E.A Mills. In his desperation to recapture power, he promised to introduce a one term premium for all National Health Insurance members. Once again Ghanaians bought into this idea and subsequently voted for him and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) to come back to power in 2008. However, when he came face to face with the realities on the ground, he realised that he had made a bad promise. His party – NDC- was in power for eight years, but never implemented this policy.
Because talk is cheap, the PNC has also joined this bandwagon and promising to reduce the pension age from 60 years to 50 years – ridiculous. Thank God this party has no chance of forming a government in the foreseeable future otherwise another successful ‘promise and fail’ story would have been written. In our view, the PNC statement on the pension age is the most bizarre we have read or heard in recent times. Never again should such a statement be issued because it cheapens the seriousness of politics in Ghana.
The post Editorial: Reducing pension age from 60 years to 50 years? – Ridiculous! appeared first on The Chronicle Online.
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