The National Advisory Group set up by the Ministry of Employment to review the country’s Pay Systems, has called for calm among workers, assuring that the interest of workers is paramount in the review exercise.
Following the inauguration of the group last week to undertake the review which would result in an overhaul of the country’s salary regime, a cross-section of workers have expressed worry and uncertainty about the fate of the Single Spine Salary Structure and the pension system.
But the Group has urged workers to remain calm and await the outcome of the committee’s work.
Mr K. Ahenakwa-Quashie, a representative of the organised labour on the Advisory Group, in an interview with ADR Daily about the concerns of workers, gave the assurance that whiles reviewing the current salary structures and fashioning out the way forward, the interests of all workers would remain at the heart of the committee’s work.
According to him, the public sector pay policy would be critically assessed for improvement which may result in pay increases, adding that “we would try to convince the government to increase the pay of workers.”
“Because we can’t review a pay policy and then reduce the pay, for if we can’t increase the pay, then we would have to maintain what we have.
“We expect that something better would be done than what is happening at the moment because the objective of the pay system in the public sector is that we wish to increase it to attract more effective skills from the private sector.
“That would enable us to enhance productivity and aid in speeding up the developmental agenda of the country,” he said.
Mr Ahenakwa-Quarshie explained that the Group would hold stakeholder consultations to also solicit inputs from the various interest groups to be able to fashion out realistic solutions to challenges facing the nation’s payment systems.
The Advisory Group is expected to complete its work in three months.
The setting up of the Advisory Group for the Review of Pay Systems comes in the wake of increasing concerns about the high public wage bill which consumes over 60 percent of government’s revenue.
By: Fred Gadese-Mensah/adrdaily
