Labour Expert, Seth Ablosu is urging the Government to take urgent steps to address salary disparities in the Public Sector as recommended in the 2020 Professor Yaa Ntiamoah Badu Report.
According to him, two years after that recommendation was made, nothing has been done. He said the Government’s failure to implement recommendations from that report is creating hardship among public sector workers as their salaries are nothing to write home about.
Speaking to the media on issues arising from the May Day celebration, Mr Ablosu noted that” if those disparities are addressed, there will be no need for any Neutrality Allowance”.
”In 2020 the Professor Yaa Ntimoah Badu report urged the government to take urgent steps to deal with disparities in Public Sector Salaries and to address the disparities between high paid and the lowest-paid worker in the Public Service such that they work in dignity and it urged the government to urgent steps we are almost two years since then. They have to make references to that report because that report also contains recommendations for the President’s emoluments, those that they have taken, but, what concerns workers they haven’t dealt with this, we won’t have to talk about Neutrality Allowances, because the issues should have been addressed long before now”.
He also asked the Government to revisit its pledge of settling on a Living Wage for workers rather than a Minimum Wage.
”On the first business day, the government had left promises that government had given before yesterday which has not been met in the 2016 Manifesto of the NPP which has the forward of President Akufo Addo, then Candidate Akufo Addo, workers in Ghana were promised a living wage stands higher than the minimum wage. In the first term, there was no reference to living wages at all; nobody spoke of the living wage they had promised”.
Meanwhile, Deputy General-Secretary of the General Agricultural Workers Union of the TUC, Andrew Addoquaye Tagoe also agreed with Mr Ablosu’s suggestion that ”the Government should start processes towards settling on a living wage and do away with the minimum wage”. He was against the neutrality allowance which he said is unnecessary. According to him, the allowance distorts the Single Spine Pay Policy.
”The living wage is a type of wage moving away from the normal discussion for the minimum wage a minimum wage that is below what even world bank and the rest describe as poverty so when you are taking minimum wage it means all of us we are already poor many countries and even in Ghana some Private Sector is paying the living wage so the living wage is possible”.
He spoke of how the Government can work on a living wage for the over 700 thousand Public Sector Workers.
”It will work. We are paying people, you must pay them and pay. Replicate a certain level of treasure hold if you are expected you are delivering yourself to me and then I’m also paying you a certain amount to be able to keep you to be strong to me to deliver that service and the living wage is that respond it looks at that basket you and wife and maybe two kids what is the current situation in transport and the factors what is the current situation in utility and other tariffs. Do you need a holiday or something, not a luxury, something basic so it factors what you need to live a normal decent life without borrowing”?
GBCONLINE.COM
