A Compliance officer with the National Pensions Regulatory Authority (NPRA) says low financial literacy is the cause of low patronage of the pension scheme among women and people in the informal sector.

Lois Asiamah said the lack of adequate and appropriate information concerning pensions has left a lot of Ghanaian women and others in the informal sector unaware of the opportunities and advantages of investing in a pension scheme.

She added that due to the lack of financial literacy, people in the informal sector especially women have failed to sign onto the tier three pensions scheme due to the fact that the tier three pensions are also not mandatory.

“The informal sector falls under the tier three and that one is voluntary, it’s not mandatory so then you’d realise that most people don’t do it since it’s not by force, it’s not demanded by the law, most people don’t take advantage of it.

“And most of our women are suffering from this as well. They don’t take advantage of it. And it’s largely due to the fact that some don’t have that much information on pensions at all. There’s no pension literacy out there. And some don’t even have much information about the financial sector itself. So then they don’t have a lot of information about what they can do and what they cannot do.”

She stated that recent happenings in the financial sector, most especially the financial sector cleanup and its attendant problems have even further discouraged people from investing in a pension scheme.

According to her, doubts about the security of investments in banks and other formal financial institutions have led women and others in the informal sector to steer clear off pension schemes.

Read more @Joy Online