The Director-General of the Social Security and National Insurance Trust, Dr John Ofori-Tenkorang, has revealed that the reason many Ghanaians cannot have a relaxed and happy retirement is because they have a poor attitude towards that stage of their lives.
He says persons who didn’t have formal jobs in the past invested well in their children so they in turn could take care of them in their old ages but many people with formal jobs, hardly make any meaningful plan towards their retirement.
“Those of us who get into formal pensions, we don’t take the time to plan for it,” he stated.
Due to the lack of planning, Dr Ofori-Tenkorang says, many people depend on just the income they get from SSNIT when they go on pension, but that is usually not enough to take care of their needs.
“I don’t think that we do enough planning and so by the time you realise that we are about to go on pension then there are many things that are not in place and because of that lack of planning we end up depending on only one source of income and have forgotten to plan to get alternative sources of income or even plan our lifestyle… and so when that time comes because of lack of preparation we find ourselves wanting and then we realise that there’s not a lot we can do about it.”
Many pensioners in the country have to engage in menial jobs for little salaries to add up to what they receive from SSNIT every month which they say is very little, but Dr Ofori-Tenkorang urged Ghanaians to start planning for their retirement from the first day they start working if they want to enjoy their old age.
He said, “from day one when you start working, you got to think that the next day you’re going to be one day closer to that pension so you should start planning for it.”
The SSNIT boss was speaking to Rev Dr Kwabena Opuni-Frimpong on GTV’s ‘What is Next’.