Nana Osei Bonsu, the big boss at the Private Sector Federation, isn’t mincing words Ghana’s third-tier pension system? Yeah, it’s just not getting the job done. He says it’s totally missing its main goal: giving the private sector some real, long-term cash to work with.
He hopped on JoyNews’ PM Express (that was July 10th, by the way) and just laid it out. Basically, getting loans is a pain, and there’s not enough money flowing around for businesses to actually grow. “Credit’s expensive. Nobody can pull together the kind of money they need. It’s rough out there,” he said. Honestly, he’s not wrong.
Pension funds are supposed to be this goldmine for long-term investment, right? Instead, Osei Bonsu points out, Ghana’s still got this massive gap. The whole idea with the three-tier pension scheme was to plug that gap to let private businesses tap into some of that sweet, patient money. The Federation actually helped build this thing, so you’d think they’d know.
But here’s the kicker: it’s not working out the way they planned. The third tier was meant to funnel, like, a third of the pension money into private sector stuff. Real businesses. Actual risk and reward. But what’s happening? Most of that cash is just chilling in treasury bills and bonds. Safe, boring, government-backed stuff. Not exactly the engine of private innovation.
He sounded a bit frustrated, honestly. “That’s not what this was supposed to be about,” he said probably shaking his head. He wants to see way more people getting involved in the voluntary third-tier part government, employers, regular folks everyone pitching in to pump up the pool for private businesses.
“We need more people in the game, more money in the pot,” Osei Bonsu insisted. The whole point is to get a chunk of that money especially the long-term stuff flowing into private sector projects.
If that happens? Well, he figures businesses wouldn’t be fighting tooth and nail for every little loan. There’d be real competition among investors, and interest rates? Those should finally come down. “If there’s tons of capital floating around and businesses are practically begging people to invest, watch those rates drop,” he said, wrapping it up.
So yeah he’s basically saying: let’s stop playing it safe and actually use pension money to build something. Radical idea, right?