The Chief Executive Officer of the Private Enterprise Federation (PEF), Nana Osei Bonsu says he is not in full support of government setting up a pension scheme for cocoa farmers.
Nana Osei Bonsu believes government will be duplicating an already existing scheme should it go ahead with its plans for the farmers.
“What we think is that, yes it’s good to have pension schemes for the cocoa farmers but there exist already a three tier pension scheme” he said.
“Government does need to reinvent the wheel. All the government needs to do is that assign a percentage of the bonus to cocoa farmers as their pension scheme. Because we have professional farm managers to manage that, we have trustees to manage that. Don’t go create something that exists already,” he warned.
Nana Osei Bonsu’s assertion follows an announcement made by government last year to set up a pension scheme for cocoa farmers.
As such Cocoa farmers will from this year be signed onto the Cocoa Pension scheme.
Chief Executive Officer of the National Pensions Regulatory Authority, Hayford Atta Krufi had also hinted that COCOBOD is currently in the process of collecting the data of all cocoa farmers in the country to ensure the successful implementation of the scheme.
Although Nana Osei Bonsu believes the move by government is laudable, he insists there is an already existing scheme that could be used to run the system.
“it is laudable that they are thinking about the farmers retirement, but At least there is a scheme involved and existing that they can use to run that” he stated.
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By: Jessica Ayorkor Aryee/citibusinessnews.com/Ghana
