I also screamed at Seth Terkper not to dare touch pensions – Koku Anyidoho

A former Deputy General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Koku Anyidoho has said he also screamed at former Finance Minister Seth Terkper not to dare tax pensions when former President John Dramani Mahama was in office.

He described pension funds as just too delicate to be touched.

“As Deputy General Secretary of the NDC, I once had to scream at Seth Terkper (when he was John Mahama’s Finance Minister), not to dare tax pensions. My principles on, Pensions remain the same. Pensions are just too delicate to be touched; it is like skating on very thin ice,” he tweeted in reaction to the rejection of the inclusion of pensioners in the Domestic Debt Exchange Programme (DDEP) by former Chief Justice Sophia Akuffo.

He added “Former CJ, Sophia Akufo, holding a placard as she pickets at Finance Ministry because she is a pensioner and does not subscribe to the move that shall adversely affect pensioners. Let those who have ears, hear. As for those of us with eyes, we have seen.”

Madam Sophia Akuffo joined a group of pensioners to picket at the Ministry of Finance in Accra on Friday, February 10.

Speaking to journalists she said “These are all people who have worked, they have worked very hard, they could have left the country when others were going but they stayed, they worked for the nation.

“We have had our ups and downs. A lot of us were from generations where we were encouraged to save for tomorrow and all that. We have been through times where all your savings become nonsense because of some government policies, then over the years, bit by bit, people have become more confident in the economy and investments.

“Quite a number of people here today, when they retired last two years they have put everything into government bonds, it is a contract and now all of a sudden, you virtually want to, at gunpoint, force them to agree with you that the repayment of the yield of their investment should be as you dictate it. Why?”

She further criticized the government for not being able to account for the borrowings done over the years.

“Why are we in the mess? Nobody has fully explained to us, yes we took debt, what was it used for? and where is the accountability? Exactly what was it used for? You are not telling us about how you are going to be able to make things better but just that ‘help me and I help you’, no, you help yourself first, let me see you doing something serious because we have seen these sorts of things too many times.

“I am over 70 years now, I am no longer government employed, my mouth has been ungagged and I am talking and I am saying that we have failed and it is important that the elderly should be respected. I find this wicked, I find it disrespectful, I find it unlawful, I find it totally wrong.

The pensioners have been picketing at the Ministry since Monday, February 6 to be exempted from the Programme.