Ghana’S Pension Reforms in Perspective: Can the Pension Benefits Provide a House a Real Need of the Retiree?

The Government of Ghana enacted another pension reform in 2008 to establish a three-tier Pension Scheme with the objective of enhancing pension payments, financial independence to the retired worker and also for capital mobilization for national development. The purpose of any policy reforms that seeks to protect vulnerability of people must be significant to address identified inadequacies in a previous one. This paper is very critical of the new pension reform (Act 716) of 2008 as it provides unrealistic benefit to the pensioner to meet vital needs (i. e A HOUSE), a cultural demand, the lack of it, is killing many retirees in Ghana. The significance of the concept of building a house in Ghanaian cultural setting and retirees is discussed extensively. The mortgage industry which the Act or Scheme relies on is also evaluated. The conclusions are very revealing that the mortgage industry in Ghana is very expensive, unaffordable and therefore unreliable to provide any low cost housing to low income earners and many civil servants in Ghana. The paper proposes that a holistic Pension Scheme that is focused and targeted to identified cultural needs must be established. Financial independence as emphasized in the pension reform act is good but myopic and cannot guarantee longevity. Keywords: Pension Reforms, Retirees, House Mortgage

E-Procurement as an Alternate Paradigm to the Challenges of Procuring Goods and Services in the Public Sector - A Case Study of Ghana Cocoa Board

The main purpose of the research was to identify challenges that procurement officers encounter in their day to day activities of procuring goods and services for their organization. Ghana Cocoa Board was used as a case study and an extensive study conducted on e-procurement to assess if it would serve as a better alternative to the manual way of procuring items and services in public institutions. Scholarly articles were reviewed to provide an empirical insight into the impact of using e-procurement in institutions. Questionnaires and interviews were used to assess the views of the respondents. Upon collecting the data and analyzing the results, the findings of the study revealed that procurement officers were faced with challenges such as long lead-times in the procurement of goods and services, delay in the execution of task and lack of transparency in the procurement process. Also the procurement officers and the staff members interviewed were of the view that e-procurement would be better alternative to the manual procedure used for procuring goods and services. The researchers recommended that the Ghana Public Procurement Authority (PPA) should adopt pragmatic steps towards educating procurement officers on the value of e-procurement and subsequently (the PPA) should consider encouraging all procurement entities to adopt e-procurement for the purchasing of goods rather than the manual method of procurement. Keywords: e-Procurement, Transparency, Public Procurement Authority (PPA)