IMANI President Asks Pensions Regulator: Where Is Our Pension Money?

Dear National Pensions Regulatory Authority,
I have had to cut short my self-imposed break from public advocacy to write this letter. Over the last couple of months I have become overwhelmed and increasingly worried about the number of calls I personally receive from disgruntled workers and retirees about the poor state of their pensions.
I was particularly struck with the following paragraph in one of the letters a middle-aged worker sent to me 'The state-owned pension organization 'SSNIT' was a Ponzi (419) scheme. We hoped for liberation from outright theft of worker contributions, haphazard and shady investments and sleazy financial reporting only to be in the jaws of a begotten baby crocodile (NPRA) preparing to devour our pension money nyafu nyafu'. "nyafu nyafu" is a local term for petty corruption.
My think tank, IMANI had many public and private fruitful engagements with the NPRA and we agreed on a timetable for remitting tier-two contributions to legally registered trustees. I have however sought to make this communication public to further the discourse and help Ghanaian workers with information on where we stand with part of their pension money.
It may well be that you are working under very trying conditions, but it seems we need finality to the issue of second-tier contributions three and half years after collection.
BACKGROUND
In September 2009, the Board of the National Pensions Regulatory Authority (NPRA) was set up to oversee the implementation of the National Pensions Act, 2008 (Act 766). The Act seeks to create a unified pension system under a three tiered pension structure, with SSNIT as the manager of the First Tier, and Approved Trustees (Corporate & Individual Trustees) as operators of the mandatory Tier 2 and Voluntary Tier 3 schemes.
In January 2010, the Temporary Pension Fund Account (TPFA) was set up to provisionally administer Tier 2 contributions pending the licensing of Trustees and the registering of Pension Schemes. Employers, from January 2010, remitted 5% (Tier 2 contributions) of their employees' salaries to the TPFA. This continued for most employers till October 2012.