Gender Ministry to ensure passage of Ageing Bill

The Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Nana Oye Lithur, has indicated the government’s commitment to continue to put in place the necessary structures to ensure that elderly persons in the country are properly taken care of.

In the pursuit of this objective, she said the ministry would work hard to ensure the passage of the Ageing Bill into law, this year, indicating that the Attorney General had finalised the processes in that respect, and the Bill would be presented to Cabinet during the first quarter of the year.

Aged fund

When passed, the act would see to the establishment of an aged fund which would be used to address the challenges of the aged and create a social safety net for older persons.
Nana Lithur stated this at a get-together for the elderly, held at the Jubilee Park in Tamale on Tuesday by the ministry, to enrol over 600 elderly persons in the Northern Region onto the National Health

Insurance Scheme (NHIS), to enable them to access free medical care.

The free registration of the elderly persons with the NHIS formed part of the government’s social protection intervention for the elderly in the society, which is being rolled out by the ministry throughout the country.

The ministry also registered about 300 inmates of the Tamale Central Prisons with the NHIS for free to enable the inmates to access healthcare.

Ageing Council
She said an Ageing Council had been inaugurated to regulate the implementation of the National Ageing Policy launched during the tenure of President Evans Atta Mills, adding that an Ageing Desk had also been established at the ministry to address issues pertaining to elderly persons in the country.

Nana Lithur announced that the ministry would organise a National Ageing Policy and Pensions Conference to bring all stakeholders in ageing issues together this year.

The conference, she said, would afford participants the opportunity to share ideas on best practices for caring for older persons.

She said the ministry would continue to register old persons with the NHIS and also continue to roll out the EBAN Welfare Card Project, to cover not less than 25,000 elderly persons nationwide.

Elderly welfare card
The EBAN Elderly Welfare Card is meant to ensure that elderly persons are given priority in banking halls, hospitals and get 50 per cent rebate when purchasing Metro Mass Transit buses.

Nana Oye Lithur announced that the project would be extended to the Northern, Upper East and Upper West Regions by the third quarter of this year.

She further gave the assurance that the Livelihood Empowerment Project (LEAP) would also be expanded to cover more beneficiaries in the Northern Region, especially the Tamale Metropolis.

The Metropolitan Chief Executive for Tamale, Alhaji Abdul Rahman Hanan Gundadow who represented the Northern Regional Minister, Alhaji Mohammed Muniru Limuna, commended the ministry for extending the free NHIS registration exercise to the elderly in the region.