Single Spine to stay despite challenges - Prez Mahama
The government will not cancel its present pay policy, in spite of the challenges associated with the implementation of the Single Spine Pay Policy (SSPP), President John Dramani Mahama has stated.
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Rather, it would revamp the SSPP to remove the inequity in the salaries of public service workers and ensure “equal pay for equal work”, he said.
"Notwithstanding the challenges with the implementation of the SSPP, the government remains committed to its implementation. We have come far and cancelling payment is not an option for the government," he stressed.
President Mahama stated the government’s position on the pay policy at the opening of a two-day national forum on the implementation of the SSPP in Ho in the Volta Region.
The forum, attended by representatives of employers, labour unions, civil society organisations and academia, seeks to discuss the implementation of the SSPP and come up with a way forward.
It has the theme: "Building National Consensus on Sustainability of the Single Spine Pay Policy".
The participants will discuss issues bordering on the SSPP and come up with a communique which will spell out measures to ensure its sustainable implementation.
The implementation of the SSPP, which seeks to ensure equity in the salaries of public service workers, began in January 2010. So far, about 99.9 per cent of public institutions, representing more than 47,000 workers, have been migrated onto the new pay policy.
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Labour Unrest
The President said although the implementation of the SSPP had been fraught with labour unrest, mostly from health and educational sector workers, the policy had streamlined the negotiation of public sector wages, improved salaries and ensured equity in wages.
He mentioned the inability of public sector workers to link the increased wages with enhanced productivity and the implementation of the SSPP without regard to budget constraints as some of the major missing links in the implementation of the SSPP.
Besides, the President said, disagreements over placement, award of market premium without reference to any recognised survey and demand for annual increases in base pay were some of the challenges facing the implementation of the pay policy.
President Mahama said many workers had the misconception that the implementation of the SSPP was to bring about automatic wage increases across the board.
As a result, he said, workers who did not realise appreciable increases in their salaries began agitations, leading to strikes.
He explained that the SSPP was to ensure equity and fairness in the wages of public service workers to achieve equal pay for equal work.
So far, he said, the implementation of the SSPP "has led to increased income and improvement in the standard of living of workers".
Besides, President Mahama said, the establishment of the joint standing negotiating committee had streamlined salary negotiation and indicated that the pay policy had helped the government to know the actual number of public sector workers and their corresponding salaries.
He said the implementation of the SSPP had increased the government's wage bill, which made it difficult for it to allocate enough funding to other social interventions and infrastructure development.
''If we conduct the discussion on the SSPP in good faith, we will overcome the challenges,'' he said.
President Mahama, therefore, urged workers to increase productivity to be commensurate with their enhanced salaries.
The President said before the implementation of the SSPP, the public service was working with more than 100 different pay categories.
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He said the task of bringing all those categories into one single spine under the SSPP was a daunting one, hence the challenges that confronted its implementation.
Collaboration
The President tasked the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission (FWSC) to collaborate with organised labour to complete the migration by the end of the year, as well as rationalise categories two and three office holders.
He said a Public Sector Productivity Committee would be formed this year to work on skills development with the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations.
In his remarks, the Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, Mr Seth Terkper, said current trends in the compensation bill resulting from the implementation of the SSPP "suggest that the pay policy is not sustainable on the trajectory we are currently observing”.
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"The compensation bill has more than tripled in absolute terms between 2009 and 2012 , rising from GH¢2.9 billion to GH¢9.0 billion, including salary arrears in 2012," he said.
The Chairman of the National Development Planning Commission, Mr P.V. Obeng, who chaired the function, called for a non-partisan discussion with the view to achieving the best approaches in addressing the challenges with the implementation of the pay policy.
By Musah Yahaya Jafaru/Daily Graphic/Ghana