Dr. Yaw Baah, Deputy Secretary-General of the Ghana Trades Union Congress (Ghana-TUC), has said Ghana’s many and varied natural endowments hardly reflected in the quality of life of the majority of the people.

He said many Ghanaians were only managing to survive as governments over the years ruined the opportunities to raise living standards across-board.

Dr. Baah was addressing an expanded Ho Municipal Council of Labour Meeting in Ho, ahead of the May Day celebrations.

Areas he addressed were the State of Ghana’s Economy, the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA), latest on the Single Spine Pay Policy and a brief on the 2014 May Day.

He said an economy which could provide sustainable jobs for only 10 per cent of the people “cannot be said to be doing well”.

Dr. Baah said many people with jobs were on “slave salaries” even though the country was said to be within the middle income bracket.

He said God had endowed Ghana and, therefore, there was no reason for the country to be poor except “we want to be poor”.

Regarding the labour-government fray over public sector wages, Dr. Baah said the government’s talk about a moratorium on salary increases in the public sector was not acceptable to labour.

He said labour’s position had been made loud and clear that “you freeze wages, workers freeze their hands”.

Dr. Baah said some negotiations were still going on but what “is on the table is not clear enough”.

Dr. Baah said the issue of the EPA was a dicey one, and that decisions on it must reflect a lot of circumspection.

The theme of May Day 2014 celebrations in Ghana, being organized under the auspices of the Ghana TUC and its affiliate Unions, is “Ghana’s Economy, A Concern For All”.

The national durbar, to be addressed by President John Mahama, is in Accra.