‘Emoluments to be based on strength of the economy’

Barring the Constitutional provision allowing the President and Members of Parliament (MP) to vary the recommendations of the Professor Dora Francisca Edu-Buandoh Presidential Committee on Emoluments (PCE), the Executive and Legislature would have retirement packages based on the strength of the economy.

This is one of the principles undergirding the recommendations of the committee set up in accordance with Article 71 of the 1992 Constitution in January this year by the President.

It is also a departure from past committees, whose recommendations caused public outcry because of the gargantuan sums received as benefits after the tenure of the Executive and Legislature.

Make public

“One of the principles on which we based our recommendations was the state of the economy,” Prof. Edu-Buandoh said in an exclusive interview with the Daily Graphic.

The state of the economy is also an underlying principle of the Single Spine Pay Policy (SSPP), and that recommendation was also made by the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission (FWSC), when the Prof. Edu-Buandoh Committee began consultations with the public and public emolument bodies,such as the FWSC when it began their work.

“Another recommendation was for the PCE report to be made public, and in keeping with that, 50 copies were presented to the President at the Flagstaff House for distribution to all public institutions where people can have access,” Prof. Edu-Buandoh said.

She, therefore, referred the Daily Graphic to the presidency for a copy of the report.

The recommendation for the report to be made public was also a marked departure from the Chinery-Hesse Committee on Pay Structure, the Prof. Miranda Greenstreet and Prof. Ewurama Addy PCE reports of 2008 and 2012 respectively that were not made public and fuelled public disquiet.

Recommendations

Meanwhile, in an interview with the Chief Executive of the FWSC, Mr George Smith-Graham, he explained that in their recommendations to the Prof. Edu-Buandoh committee, the principles of fairness and equity undergirding the SSPP, as well as the ability of the state to pay, were suggestions made.

Mr Graham said with the institution of the reformed pay administration regime, it was in order for the salaries of retiring members of the Executive and the Legislature to be in sync otherwise “the state would just be “dashing out money.”

He further explained that these had been some of the suggestions with the previous committee where the salary of a chief director in public institutions was used as the factor in the calculation of the emoluments.

However, that basic salary was consolidated together with other allowances, distorting the calculations.

He said in any calculation of the emoluments, the basic salary had to be differentiated from allowances to ensure equity and fairness which was at the heart of the reformed pay policy.

Writer's email: caroline.boateng@graphic.com.gh