“This is not the first time we’ve been in arrears, but it is not something that government will renege on. I beg them, we should engage. We acknowledge that we are in arrears. I plead with my teacher unions to exercise restraint. Everybody knows what the country is going through. We will start engaging them and see how we can bridge the gap,” he said in an interview on Citi FM on Friday.

Teacher unions including the National Association of Graduate Teachers, the Coalition of Concerned Teachers, and the Teachers and Educational Workers Union accused the government of defaulting in the payment of their Tier 2 pensions to the tune of over GH¢400 million.

The unions said several letters they sent to the Ministry of Employment went unanswered a claim Mr Wireko-Brobby denied.

It’s not a crime to owe

Mr Wireko-Brobbey, who is also the Member of Parliament for Hemang Lower Denkyira constituency, said it is not criminal for such pension payments to be in arrears.

He, however, urged the teachers to halt all discussions in the media and engage with government.

“I am taken aback a bit because these are issues that are not new to us, and we keep resolving them and I wanted to even ask the teachers the rationale for taking this to the public domain.

“My attention was drawn to it this morning, but who doesn’t know that we are in a financial crisis now? What matters to us most is to be able to pay every worker at the end of the month and that is what we have been doing.”

He also assured that the arrears will be paid with time but not at the moment since pensions are not for immediate usage.

“Pensions have a history, and we contribute to it for the future. What is important in these difficult times is that every worker must be paid every month and that is what we have been doing, and we have been paying them timely since COVID-19 came.

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“Pensions are not too problematic because it’s for the future, we find money and pay it, and now we are in arrears. We admit we are in arrears and that is not a matter to escalate to the media when we have acknowledged that we will pay, and it is not criminal to owe.”

The Deputy Employment Minister further assured that his outfit will schedule a meeting with leadership of the teacher unions next week to find ways to resolve the debacle.

Mr Musah says looking at those on pension, for the past two years, their daily livelihood is nothing to write home about.

The tier 2, according to the General Secretary, is profitable according to how much profit is made on the contributions made.

This means, what the teachers receive is according to the profit the tier 2 contributions make.

GNAT is lamenting that for every month, the amount the government deducts is about 35 million to 36 million Ghana Cedis which by law, within 14 days, the government must put in the fund, if not, then the government must pay a 3% interest for it.

Mr Musah disclosed that although government defaulted, no effort has been made to pay the three percent which is affecting the scheme.

The National Pension Regulatory Authority, which is supposed to ensure that government complies by paying their deduction, is doing nothing about the situation.

He added that the scheme can only pay anyone going on pension or anyone on pension based on the last deduction which is March 2022.

This comes at the back of a joint statement by the leadership of four teacher unions who said the government makes monthly deductions from their salaries for payment of their Occupational Pension Scheme (Tier 2) contributions to the Ghana Education Service.

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The aggrieved unions include the Ghana National Association of Teachers, the National Association of Graduate Teachers, the Coalition of Concerned Teachers and the Tertiary Educational Workers Union.

The default, according to them, spans over nine months as the last payment was made in March 2022.
This means workers who went on pension last year are in a big mess as their pension calculations would be affected.

In a joint statement by the leadership of the unions, they said the government makes monthly deductions from their salaries for the purpose of the contribution.

However, the government is in arrears of over GH¢400 million.

The groups have, therefore, given the government up to the end of February 2023 to settle all arrears.