advocate

Ho, June 28, GNA - Mr Tenasu Kofi Gbedemah, Executive Director, Institute for Information and Development (INFODEV), a Ho based non-governmental organization on Wednesday called for a stop to the deletion of names of pensioners from the pensioners' roll by unscrupulous and corrupt officers.

He noted that the highly inhumane act, a form of human rights abuse, was being carried out for no just cause.

Mr Gbedemah was speaking at the Volta Regional Fifth Quadrennial Delegates' Conference, held by the regional branch of the Ghana Government Pensioners' Association (GGPA) in Ho. The three days conference was on the theme "Foster the Right of Ghana Government Pensioners and Build on their Infrastructures for the Development of Ghana".

Mr Gbedemah stated that the deletion of names caused severe problems adding that, it could take up to six months to rectify such situations, through a lengthy and difficult process.

He observed that the names were often deleted without any consultation with the pensioners, denying them their basic rights. Mr Gbedemah also expressed dissatisfaction at discrepancies in the pension scheme under the Consolidated Fund, which he said gave top government officials " one-time", lump sum retiring benefits. He said for example, the amount of money received by many pensioners under the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) was much less than those receiving allowances under schemes from the Armed Forces and Judiciary. The poor pensioners, according to Mr Gbedemah, were being further subjected to unfair suffering at the hands of bureaucracy and "over centralization". He, therefore, stressed the importance of decentralizing documents to regional level in order to ease the pension process, and replaced the filling out of forms with a more efficient, computerized system. Benjamin Kpesese, Regional Chairman of the GGPA, reminded the attendees of the hard work put into improving the country by those of retired through their "great contributions".

He said that pensioners in Ghana were entitled to the same fundamental rights as other citizens, as decreed by the 1992 Constitution of the Republic of Ghana.

Mr Kpesese called on the government to carry on appreciating what pensioners had done to contribute faithfully, and with devotion, to the building of the structures of the land during their working days. "In those days, we willingly went to any place, where our services were needed; whether the conditions were good or not, whether the roads leading to those places were good or bad, we moved onward", he said. Delegates at the conference hoped to discuss problems and evaluate previous decisions, both successful and unsuccessful. The conference would culminate with the election of three Regional Officers; namely the Regional Chairman, Regional Secretary and the Deputy Regional Secretary. 28 June 2006