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Helpage Ghana, which seeks the welfare of the aged, has appealed to the Fair Wages commission and other bodies like the Social Secuirty and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) to consider increase in the retirement benefit o fpensioners considering the current health economic situation. According to HelpAge project officer Ama Ofiori Antwi, some pensioners received as low as GH�20 and GH�50 a month as pension benefit which she described as woefully inadequate considering the high cost of living, including high utility tariffs. Mrs. Antwi, made the passionate appeal yesterday at a forum for members of the Parliamentary Select Committee for Employment, Social Welfare and State Enterprises on ageing issues in Ghana. It was on the theme �Ageing in Ghana-Policy and Legal Perspective.� Mrs. Antwi described as sad the difficulties that some pensioners go through before having their pension documents certified for them let alone processing for subsequent payments. She said in an encounter with some of the aged in Ashanti, Volta and the Greater Accra regions at HelpAge implementing programmes, known as the Old Citizens Monitoring project, she was amazed to know that it took some of the aged two to three years before having their pension entitlements paid them. This is after paying bribes to �fast track� the processing of their documents. She said one thing that society and those in high positions have to consider is that most of the aged in one way or the other, have contributed their quota to the state and deserve to be treated fairly. The General Manager at Operations of SSNIT, Mrs Gifty Anterkyi, said the problem of low pensions could be attributed to the low social security premium that employers pay to SSNIT, citing some institutions that pay as low as GH�5 a month as workers contribution. She said once employers was workers fair wages it would eventually yield more to their retirement benefits adding that the law enjoins employers not to pay workers below the minimum wage. She asked the Employers Association, Trades Union Congress and other bodies to check cases where some workers are paid below the minimum wage. The Member of Parliament for Trobu-Amasaman, Ernest Atuquaye Armah, said the earlier something was done about the ageing policy of the country the better it would be for all. He said every working person would eventually go on retirement and appealed to people at the helm of affairs to treat the elderly humanely because they would also get to that stage. The Member of Parliament for North Tongu, Charles Hodogbe, said in other countries workers feel happy to go on retirement because adequate measures are put in place by both the state and employers to make life worth living for them. Delivering a paper on �HIV/AIDS on older people�, Mr. James Aryeetey, Health Promotion Consultant of the Ghana AIDS Commission said the aged have a role to play in combating HIV/AIDS infection in the country. He said it is unfortunate that most of the educational programmes on the pandemic are geared towards the youth, stressing that though the youth are more vulnerable to the disease, the aged play a vital role in taking care of orphan children who lose their parents to AIDS.