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The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the National Pensions Regulatory Authority (NPRA), Mr Hayford Attah Krufi, has called on the government to give the authority prosecutorial powers to prosecute employers who fail to pay social security contribution.

Mr Krufi said the core mandate of the authority which is to inform and educate people on the need to have retirement income security is gradually changing towards enforcing and ensuring that consumers have value for money and enjoy better pay out at the end of the service.

“With these powers, the authority will be able to hold employers and companies to task when they fail to remit monthly contribution to the mandatory tier 1 and tier 2 pension schemes,” Mr Krufi said.

Mr Krufi made these statements in Accra on Thursday at a media training exercise on the implementations of the 3-tier pension which is the voluntary group or the personal pension scheme.

He said after the establishment of the National Pensions Act, 2008, Act 766 which was amended by Act 883, through its mandate of informing and educating has been able to sensitise the general public and employers on the need to ensure their retirement security by paying monthly contributions.

The CEO said, however, there are still handfuls of employers and companies who are yet to oblige to this mandatory social security contribution and may need enforcement from the authority to comply.

Mr Krufi said the Act stipulates that the minimum age of membership is 15 years and maximum age of 45 years. He said companies ought, therefore to comply to secure the future of employees.

He said the authority has put in place to oversee the administration and manage of the composite schemes to ensure that the various regulatory bodies of the scheme such as the trustees, fund management and the likes adhere to the rules of safeguarding their investment.

“It will interest you to know that the assets for tier-2 alone stands at GHȼ8.5b which keeps on changing and accounting for 5.4% of GDP. We have not even factored in Social Security and National Insurance Trust pension which if you add will be hitting at least 20% of GDP," he noted.

The NPRA boss said another thing “we are trying hard to push is that the contributor’s interest is always supreme.

On his part, the Deputy Chief Executive Officer,NPRA, Mr David Tetteh Armey-Abbey said the authority is amid at investing contributor’s funds to ensure that there is security.

Mr Tetteh said that the total assets management for tier 2 and 3 private pension fund as at January 31, 2018 was at GHȼ10.9b.