A labour expert, Austin Gammey, says the government would be committing suicide if it acquiesces to a request by public sector workers for a 20% salary increment.
Public sector workers have requested the salary increment in lieu of the Cost of Living Allowance (COLA) agreed with the government which ends in December 2022.
The workers cite galloping inflation as the reason for their demand.
Speaking on the demand, Austin Gammey said such an increment will cripple the government, not to speak of being probably unpalatable to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
“The obvious thing for anybody to do is to pay based on productivity but in Ghana, we don’t pay based on productivity. So once we are paying people based on inflation and political consideration this is what they will demand,” he said on Morning Starr with Naa Dedei Tettey.
“I don’t think that if you speak directly to the IMF for this to be part of the approval of our budget for the year 2023, they will never accept that if the government itself as an employer cannot afford to accept that. Because you want 20 percent and if inflation is about 32 percent and we have to suffer a 12 percent shortfall in our income then they are bearing with you. This is not based on productivity,” Mr. Gammey explained.
The Labour analyst further said if there is a disagreement on the demand by the workers then both sides will end up at the National Labour Commission for the issue to be addressed.
“Because the government as an employer cannot afford to pay 20 percent increase on the base pay, it will be suicidal and so they will not be able to do it and they can’t do it. It will be extremely sad and surprising if they are able to do it because the consequences are very obvious,” he added.
Source: theGhanaianVoice.Com