Former workers of the five consolidated banks, Unibank, Beige, Royal, Construction and Sovereign banks may be heaving a sigh of relief as Citi Business News has gathered the workers can now access their tier 3 pension contributions, and Provident Funds.
The Provident Fund is money the workers voluntarily contributed personally to a scheme which was managed by privately owned insurance companies.
“We have been looking forward to this because my salary was not enough and most of us have commitments and loans we took from other institutions that we need to pay,” one of the workers who has resigned from the Consolidated Bank and wants to remain anonymous told Citi Business News in an interview.
The about 3,000 workers of the five consolidated banks had their salaries slashed and their allowances, including rent and clothing also scrapped by managers of the bank that is currently handling their former companies.
The workers have been going through a recruitment process for the past five months.
Earlier, some workers of Beige were sacked. The rest, together with the workers of Unibank, Royal, Construction and Sovereign banks have written some tests and are scheduled to go through an interview process as part of the recruitment exercise.
The ongoing recruitment process include negotiation of new salaries and allowances.
However, redemption forms have been sent to the workers to claim their tier 3 contributions
According to the redemption procedure, a withdrawal of all or part of accrued benefit before the tax exemption period of ten 10 years may be subject to a 15 percent withholding tax payable to the Ghana Revenue Authority.
It is however unclear when the workers will receive their severance packages.
citinews
