Othello B. Garblah
20 February 2004
Discontentment is brewing among the staff of the Ghana Standards Board (GSB) over the establishment of a Provident Fund by management.
The workers said they were concerned about the apparent lack of transparency in the manner in which the Trust had been created without any spelt out terms of benefit and knowledge about its management.
"Imagine about 300 workers contributing ¢100,000 each every month; it is a lot of money and we should know those handling the money and how it is going to be managed," the staff told The Chronicle in Accra yesterday.
The creation of the Trust Fund, The Chronicle gathered, was announced at a staff durbar on November 21, last year. Each member of the about 360 workforce was supposed to contribute 10% of his or her salary monthly, while management would contribute additional 10%.
The main aim of setting up the Provident Fund, according to management was to enable the Ghana Standards Board pay its staff on retirement, the difference between the lump sum payment to a contributor to the SSNIT pension scheme and the Superannuation contributor, a difference which management tagged at 50%.
But the workers said they were worried because not only were they not told about those heading the Fund or how a contributor could access it, also the formula for calculating the retirement benefits had not been made clear.
"They are still not open with certain aspects about the fund," a staff said. "They should come out and tell us in simple terms what criteria they are going to use, because what happens if one person has worked for three years and another for ten years but both are going on retirement at the same time?"
However, Mr. James K. Buabeng, Director of Finance said the criterion was based on a similar scheme run by the University of Ghana, Legon.
He said although the creation of the fund was officially announced at a staff durbar last year, the understanding was that a committee was going to be set up to look at how it would be invested and the terms of benefits.
As to why the deductions were being made from the workers' salaries when the committee had not been formed, Mr. Buabeng said this was part of three main stages involved in setting up the Fund.
According to him, fund mobilization was the first stage and this was what had begun.
For the second stage, which is the fund management, the director said management sent out an inter-departmental memorandum dated December 12, last year for each of the three organizations at the Standards Board to submit two names to form the management committee.
The memo was sent to the Chairmen of the local workers union, the Scientific Staff Association, and the Senior Staff Association.
Additionally, Mr. Buabeng said it was envisaged that since the issue concerned all members of staff, a committee comprising representatives of all identifiable bodies would be set up to make proposals on the disbursement and benefits to pay to a contributor who resigned before retirement or any other benefits.
He said the deduction of the contribution was communicated to the staff through the heads of divisions.
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