February 2026

Ghana. SSNIT, Sustainability and the Transparency Question: Strengthening Pension Confidence

Ghana’s national pension scheme, established under the National Pensions Act, 2008 (Act 766), operates as a partially funded system. In such a structure, pensions are financed primarily from ongoing contributions by active workers, supplemented by returns on invested funds. Unlike a fully funded scheme, where benefits are paid strictly from accumulated savings for each contributor, a partially funded system relies on a mix of current inflows and accumulated assets. In this context, “reserves” do not function as a simple...

January 2026

Ghana. Retirement Research Centre backs 10% pension hike

The African Centre for Retirement Research (ACRR) has welcomed the 10 per cent pension increase for 2026, describing it as a policy decision that aligns with global best practices while safeguarding the long-term sustainability of Ghana’s pension system. Speaking on the adjustment, Executive Director of the Centre, Mashud Abdallah, said the structure of the increase reflects a careful balance between improving benefits for retirees and maintaining the financial health of the scheme. For 2026, pensions have been adjusted using a hybrid...

Ghana. President Mahama pledges to review Single Spine Salary Structure and pensions

President John Dramani Mahama has pledged to carry out a review of the Single Spine Salary Structure (SSSS) and pensions, as part of government efforts to address concerns of public sector workers. The President made the promise in his address at the opening of the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) 54th National Delegates Congress and Seventh Quadrennial Conference in Accra, on the theme, “Education and Development: The Ghana Education Service (GES) at 50: Reflecting, Reviewing, Revising, and Growing the Profession and...

December 2025

Aging in Ghana: Challenges, Realities, and Struggles

In Ghana, like many countries across Africa and the world, the population of older adults is steadily increasing due to improvements in healthcare and longer life expectancy. However, growing older in Ghana brings a number of social, economic, health, and emotional challenges especially for those without formal jobs, pensions, or family support systems. Demographic and Social Changes Ghana’s elderly population (aged 60 and above) has grown significantly over past decades. Although they make up a relatively small percentage of the total...

Ghana. Rethinking Pensioners’ Advocacy in Ghana: A New Model of SSNIT Pensioners’ Association

Ghana’s pensioner population is steadily growing. With improved life expectancy and decades of formal employment feeding into the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT), retirees today number about two hundred and fifty thousand, if not more. Yet paradoxically, this expanding demographic, arguably one of the most vulnerable and policy-affected groups remains one of the least effectively represented in national decision-making. For decades, the National Pensioners Association (NPA) has been the most visible body claiming to speak for pensioners, particularly...

Dignity in Retirement: A Call for Pension Justice in Ghana

In Ghana today, pensioners face indignity in retirement: no cost-of-living allowance, no inflation-indexed increases, and shrinking benefits that erode their livelihoods. Meanwhile, executives enjoy perks while elders struggle to survive. This injustice demands urgent reform. To restore dignity and align with international social security standards, Act 766 must be amended without delay. Pension justice is not charity — it is a right, and Ghana must rise to meet it. The Crisis of Pensioner Welfare Retirement should be a season of dignity,...

Exploring the awareness, preparedness and the state of pension among informal workers in Ghana

By Moses Segbenya, Jennifer Onomah, Raymond Kangmennaang & Esther Grantson The study explored the awareness, preparedness, and the state of pensions among informal workers in Ghana. The interpretive approach and the exploratory research design were used for this study. The snowball and purposive sampling techniques were adopted to select 45 informal workers in Ghana and two management members of a pension scheme in Ghana. Data gathered was transcribed, coded and analysed with the qualitative interpretative analytical framework. The study found that the majority of...

November 2025

Unlocking pension funds for critical infrastructure development in Ghana

Ghana's Infrastructure Crisis and Economic Imperative Ghana's economic trajectory is promising, with steady growth averaging over 5% annually in recent years, driven by sectors like agriculture, services, and mining. Yet, this progress is hampered by a chronic infrastructure deficit that undermines productivity, stifles job creation, and perpetuates inequality. Pothole-filled roads delay goods transport, erratic power supplies disrupt manufacturing, and inadequate water systems expose millions to health risks. According to estimates by the Africa Development Bank, Ghana requires at least $37...

October 2025

Ghana. SSNIT is financially viable despite past challenges – Director

Director-General of the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT), Kwesi Afreh Biney, says his outfit is financially viable despite past challenges. According to him, the entity managing contributors’ funds pays over 257,000 pensioners each month. Mr. Biney explained that while SSNIT, as an institution, had faced hurdles in the past, it has also seized opportunities to strengthen its operations, thus making the Trust financially viable and sustainable. Speaking in an interview on Accra-based Citi FM on Thursday, October 30, ahead of...

Ghana. Gov’t urged to raise salaries and extend retirement age to 65

“Someone is receiving as high as GH₵140,000 monthly pension, while others get as little as GH₵400. For such people, nothing will change even in 200 years if they were to live that long, because their salaries were too low and they didn’t adequately plan for retirement,” he lamented. He explained that improving public sector salaries would not only ensure a decent standard of living for workers but also guarantee better pension benefits after retirement. Dr. Sefa Twum also proposed that Ghana’s...