Government has rescinded the decision to include the pensions fund in its Domestic Debt Exchange Programme following the strong opposition from Organised Labour.
The development comes after the Finance Minister, Kenneth Ofori-Atta, assured leadership of the labour front that government will not touch any of their pensions at a crunch meeting held on Thursday, December 22, 2022.
The Programme, launched on Monday, December 5 and expected to take off next month, was announced as part of austerity measures to save the economy from collapse.
READ ALSO: Organised Labour to strike indefinitely from Tuesday
By the Programme, government was going to re-introduce coupons for domestic bonds, whose maturity could go to 2037. The bonds will be exchanged for new ones.
Reports of the inclusion of workers’ pensions stirred agitations within labour unions, giving government a 7-day ultimatum to exempt their contributions or lay down their tools by Tuesday, December 27.
“We are asking government to exempt us from the debt exchange programme,” Secretary General of Ghana Trades Union Congress (TUC) Dr Anthony Yaw Baah told journalists at a press conference in Accra on Monday, December 19.
“We have already told the world that if government doesn’t do that, we will advise ourselves. Today, we are here to announce the advice.
“The advice is very simple. We have all agreed that because the government has refused to grant our request, we have decided firmly that all workers of Ghana are going to strike on December 27, 2022, and we will be on strike until our demands are met.”
But the meeting with the Finance Minister is said to have made them withdraw the threat with an official announcement yet to be made, however.
Source: Onuaonline.com|Ghana
