The Industrial and Commercial Workers Union (ICU) has called on government not to freeze salaries because it would not be in the interest of workers and the nation as a whole.

The ICU said the decision to freeze salaries would consequently affect trade and commerce and asked “while government is keeping salaries at a constant level, is it in the same vein going to keep all market indices at a constant level?”

Speaking to the Ghana News Agency in an interview in Accra on Monday, Mr Solomon Kotei, General Secretary of ICU, said the salary of workers was nothing to write home about.

He said if government could not hold up the market indices, how could the worker, and for that matter the ordinary Ghanaian cope with the rising cost of living?

Mr Kotei said: “Things are getting very tough and I think the idea to freeze salaries is a desperate measure by government”.

He said the issue should not be an imposition but a dialogue adding “our tolerance level has reached a limit and any industrial explosion would be bad for everybody”.