ACCRA, Jan. 10 (Xinhua) — The public sector wage rationalization exercise embarked upon by the government of Ghana in 2010 entered its second phase here?on Friday.?? The Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) deployed its staff to carry out a Labor Market Survey (LMS) over 21 days fromJanuary 15?to enable the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission (FWSC), the state institution implementing the new wage policy, to determine critical skills in short supply in the public sector.
?? Speaking during the launch of the survey, George Smith-Graham, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the FWSC, explained that the outcome of the exercise would inform government on ways of attracting such skills into the public sector.
?? Some public sector labor unions negotiated for and were awarded Interim Market Premiums (IMPs) as a result of the implementation of the Single Spine Salary Structure (SSSS).
?? The FWSC has just completed the first phase of the four-phase wage rationalization exercise during which it migrated employees of all 139 public sector institutions onto the SSSS.
?? The heavy burden public sector wages placed on state resources with the commencement of the SSSS has become a source of worry for government and its development partners, as wages account for 70 percent of the country?s total tax revenue.
?? Smith-Graham pointed out that the government wage bill was quite high and needed to be dealt with.
?? ?As soon as government determines the critical skills lacking and puts them on market premium, all the interim market premiums would be scrapped as provided by the government white paper on the SSSS implementation,? Smith-Graham added, saying ?government wants to use market premiums to attract and retain skills that are critical to the country?s socio-economic development.
?? According to Smith-Graham, the other phases of the SSSS implementation to be rolled out are the Standardization and Harmonization of allowances and the Public Sector-wide Performance Assessment program which would link wages to performance.
?? The CEO explained that, with the assessment, each public sector institution would be given annual performance targets to achieve and would be assessed at the end of a given period.
?? ?From the heads of these institutions down to the least of the employees, performance will strictly be monitored and gauged as justification for wages being paid. There will be incentives and sanctions attached to these performance targets,? Smith-Graham stated.
?? ?The SSSS is intended to drive the Public Service Pay Administration (PSPA) with the objective of ensuring transparency, equity and fairness,? Philomena Nyarko (Ph.D), Government Statistician, said while launching the survey.
?? She said the policy also sought to remove distortions and inequities, thereby harmonizing wages and salaries.
?? Nyarko said the survey was therefore critical to identify critical skills that government needed to recruit and retain for national development.
?? The second portion of the survey will also identify the number of jobs created directly as a result of government policy interventions over the last three years.
?? Speaking to Xinhua recently, labor expert, Austin Gamey, blamed the award of interim market premiums on all types of work in the public sector for the high wage bill and wage agitations in the public sector.? Enditem
Source: Xinhua
