Asenso-Okyere: Increase Retirement Age

Ghana News Agency

Kwadwo Asenso-Okyere, Outgoing Vice Chancellor of the University of Ghana , on Thursday called on authorities to consider moving up the retirement age from the current level of 60 years to help to reduce the unemployment and accompanying poverty and misery of retired persons.

Speaking at the Institute of Economic Affairs policy forum on: "Carrying Everybody Along: Agenda for Reducing Disparity in Human Welfare," Prof Asenso-Okyere said the time had come for the authorities to adopt proactive actions to help older people to improve their lives and livelihood.

"Ghanaian businesses must accept retired persons, who would like to offer their services on voluntary basis for just allowance for transport and lunch," he said. He added, however, that the economy must expand to generate jobs to avoid the creation of a large cadre of unemployed youth.

In a lecture that spanned different aspects of national development, globalisation, regional disparity and gender among other things, Prof Asenso-Okyere emphasised that for accelerated development that allowed all the citizenry to benefit, it was important to create opportunities and safety nets for all to be part of the development process.

He said while development was necessary for improvement in human welfare, the fruits of national development had often not been shared equitably.

"Apart from natural disparity, widespread inequality has been created as a result of weak institutions and non-pragmatic policies," he said, emphasising that factors such as discrimination, nepotism, patronage and outmoded practices had eroded opportunities available to many people.

"It is, therefore, important to reduce vulnerability in order to maximise the growth in living standards of all people."

Touching on ethnic diversity, Prof Asenso-Okyere said the high level of ethnic diversity in the Ghanaian society was a potential source of strength as long as a high degree of potential rights existed.

He said the diversity in culture, work ethics, zeal, drive, ambition, entrepreneurship and sobriety in the Ghanaian society should be nurtured and practised widely for total development of the country.

"People should learn to co-exist with people from other places, with different languages and religion and adopt some of their good practices for accelerate development," he said.

"Suspicion, antagonism and hatred between ethnic groups must be eschewed and people should live as each other's keeper irrespective of where one comes from," he said.

Prof Asenso-Okyere called for ways to encourage inter-ethnic marriages to bridge the gaps and remove misunderstanding that might exist among ethnic groups.