A national pension programme for the whole informal economy sector is long overdue.
Though the idea had been mooted over and over again, implementation had been slow, even though the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) did well to create a department that later covered the private sector.
Since then, we have seen several private sector insurance actors hit the terrain with products that are currently being patronised by some of our teeming informal economy workers.
Hopes and fears
That the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) is a giant state institution with enough pedigree to lead the vision cannot be denied.
The challenge, however, has been that despite its strength on the ground, the cocoa buying mechanisms are yet to be digitized to facilitate any such transformation that enhances social protection for the poor and marginalised.
While rural banking has been improved, for instance, cocoa farmers getting their payments from buying agents through the bank is yet to see the light of day.
TUC model
We also know that the Trades Union Congress (TUC) has done some research on the informal economy and brought together several national associations like the market associations, Actors Guild and MUSIGA and linked them to private sector operators. But it has not yet been able to design group payment systems that can be cited as a success story in social protection.
What we have now are individual efforts at payments and individual promotions from insurance companies that are not adding substantially to the digitisation and social protection effort.
Ignorance
The stark truth is that there is so much graft in the insurance system that we have had reports about individual customers enrolling on schemes and having difficulties getting back their monies because of ignorance in plugging onto appropriate and relevant schemes.
If SSNIT had challenges initiating its own informal sector scheme, the fact is that other state institutions coming onto the turf may experience their own teething problems, without the luxury of research and experience to guide subsequent initiatives at building a strong and resilient national social protection machine.
COCOBOD model welcome
That is why we look forward to the effective implementation of the COCOBOD scheme, in showing the way by structures and payment platforms. In this way, other sectors which are not in the formal sector can learn from that and hook themselves to credible state and non-state pensions schemes that would give pensions a national appeal.
With the merging of the national ID cards and digitisation of addresses – all in the effort at using national data effectively – it is our fervent hope that the COCOBOD model should be structured in a way that would carry others along. This can work better with enough supervision from the state regulators that cuts out unnecessary tinkering on the part of players who have already invested in the social protection sector.
As we know, cocoa farmers form a sizeable chunk of the national workforce in the informal sector. COCOBOD’s scheme to support actors so that they can have their livelihoods assured when they go on pension is therefore a laudable one.
Social protection architecture
It is therefore our expectation that, while the organisation discusses and lays the structures, it would be willing to share with other stakeholders a broad architecture that adds value and speeds up our national digitisation effort.
Having about 80 per cent of the national economy outside the formal sector cannot be an incentive to our industrialisation and national development agenda, if a sense of urgency, including an effective social protection programme, is delayed or ignored.
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