Accra, May 21, GNA - Government intends to bring to an end the pay reforms initiatives it is undertaking to improve wages and salaries in the public sector this year, the Deputy Minister of Finance, Professor George Gyan-Baffour said on Wednesday.

In a keynote address at the 11th annual lecture of the public services commission in Accra, Dr Baffour said government was seeking through the Fair Wages Commission to address once and for all the search for progressive income policy that addressed equity and correct distortions in the pay structure.

According to him, a lot of progress had been made in fashioning out a sustainable income policy that would be able to stand the shocks of inflation, increasing prices of goods and items over time.

In all this, he said, prudent management of the economy to sustain the current stability was key to avoid the erosion in incomes through high inflation and rising cost of goods and services.

Prof Gyan-Baffour said a good pay policy must also provide incentive for increase productivity, saying government would have no hesitation to increase salaries when productivity goes up as it would have no impact on inflation.

However, he said, government would find it difficult to raise wages and incomes when it was not backed by increase productivity. Ms. Kathrin Meissner, Resident Director, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, said the issue of the indicators for the determination of the quantum of the remuneration in the public sector was very important for the building of a professional and well motivated public service. Most Rev (Dr) Robert Aboagye Mensah, Chairman, Fair Wages and Salaries Commission, who chaired the function, said the public services pay document would be finalized soon to enable the Commission to get to work.

The 11th annual lecture is on the broad theme: "Ghana in Search of a National Incomes Policy".

However, the topic for discussion was: Productivity, Performance and Pay-Policy and Practices in Ghana." The annual lecture was instituted in 1998 to create a public services platform where topical and strategic issues bearing on national development generally and on the public services in particular could be freely discussed and debated.