Africa Center for Retirement Research(ACRR) has projected a 25% increase in monthly pensions in January 2024.
According to the executive director of the Center, Mashud Abdullah, the increase is attributable to thr high inflation rate recorded in 2023.
The Center also criticized Ghana’s pension module indexation and the minimum pension paid saying, it widens the economic gap between the rich and the poor.
January is the most important time of the year for pensioners and their dependents, primarily because it is the time when the Social Security Administration announces the new rate by which pensions in payment would be increased for the current year.
It is therefore expected that In January next year, SSNIT, in consultation with the National Pensions Regulatory Authority (NPRA) will announce the new pension indexation rate for 2024, as required by Section 80 of the National Pension Act, 2008, (Act 766).
Pension indexation is a policy for the upward review of pensions in payment as a means of preserving the purchasing power of pensioners or restoring the purchasing power lost by pensioners in the previous year. Pension indexation also presents the opportunity for the Social Security Administration to redistribute pension wealth from the rich to the poor, as required by the Social Security principle of solidarity. Indexation policies, in recent times, have, therefore, been used by most countries to improve the redistribution of pension wealth to provide more financial protection for the poor.
Nana Ama Nyamekye/Ahotoronline
