The Executive Director of the Africa Centre for Retirement Research (ACRR), Abdallah Mashud, says the ruling New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) promise to enroll security service workers under the CAP 30 pension scheme is contradictory.

While discussing the pension manifestos of the NPP and the National Democratic Congress (NDC) on Joy News' AM Show on Tuesday, October 29, 2024, Professor Mashud argued that the pensions law already states that all sectors must be unified under one social security benefit.

He explained that “Section 213 indicates that five years after the implementation of Act 766, all schemes must be placed under one unified umbrella of social security. It is the National Pensions Regulatory Authority (NPRA) that is mandated to implement this section of the law.”

He argued that the NPP’s promise to transition security service workers to CAP 30 is unclear.

“The NPP stated that they want to encourage security services by moving them to CAP 30. If you look at this particular point, where they (NPP) say they want to build a unified social protection benefit scheme that requires putting everything under one umbrella, then turn around and say they want to encourage these people by placing them under CAP 30—that is a sharp contradiction,” he said.

According to a section of the NPP’s 2024 pension manifesto, the country’s pension scheme will be expanded, and the next NPP government would work towards unifying social protection benefits schemes to better target beneficiaries for maximum impact.

The manifesto also aims to protect the elderly by ensuring sustainable and secure pensions and to work with Parliament to pass an Ageing Act to provide an expanded legal framework.