Story: Mary Ankrah
The Ministry of Employment and Social Welfare (MESW) has received a petition from a number of institutions on the need to implement a pilot social pension scheme for people above 65 years.
The Deputy Minister of MESW, Mr Kwaku Antwi-Boasiako Sekyere, who made this known in Accra on Friday, said the government would examine the petition and see how best to address the issues.
He was speaking at a ceremony at which Help Age Ghana (HAG) presented a signature petition to the ministry.
The signature petition is an Age Demands Action (ADA) campaign which calls on countries and governments to seek the rights of older people and improve existing legal gaps to protect those rights by initiating programmes that would help in that direction.
So far, 56,796 signatures from 118 countries of the United Nations (UN) are on the petition, that Ghana is yet to sign.
Receiving the presentation, the Mr Sekyere indicated that the Trade Union Congress (TUC), among other institutions, has charged its ministry to pilot on social pension on older persons in the county.
He said the government was committed to ensuring the rights and well-being of older persons, hence the need to enact a National Policy for older persons, adding that the ministry would do its best to implement that policy to improve the living conditions of older persons.
He observed that Ghanaians would continue to remember the good works and contributions of older people in the development and growth of the nation.
“We acknowledge the good works of the older people, who in their youthful age contributed and toiled for the development of our nation and even in their old age make available their experiences and zealousness for the growth of the country,” he opined.
Making the presentation, the Vice-president of Help Age Ghana, Mr Edward Amejibor, said the presentation was to lobby the government to attend the Open-Ended Working Group on Ageing (OEWG) slated for August 21 to 24, 2012 at New York to discuss proposal for the promotion and protection of the rights of older people in UN member countries.
He said the government’s acceptance to attend the OEWG was a clear demonstration of it commitment to promote the general well-being of older people and commended its for doing so.
The OEWG was created by the UN General Assembly resolution A/RES/65/182 on December 21, 2010 for the purpose of strengthening the protection of the human rights of older persons by considering their existing international framework of the human rights of the aged and identify possible gaps and solutions in addressing them.
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