Ho, Oct 26, GNA - Dr Yaw Baah, the Deputy Secretary-General of the Trades Union Congress, said the Single Spine Salary scheme could be the biggest boost to the dynamics of production in Ghana's public sector for many years by pushing public sector salaries to economic levels. He said incomes represented an important determinant of levels of employee effectiveness and efficiency and that productivity was inexplicably linked to remuneration.

Dr Baah, a Labour Economist, who spoke to the GNA in an interview, cautioned that labour was in no mood for any delay in the implementation of the new salary scheme beyond the scheduled time of January 2010. Dr Baah said it was the responsibility of the employer - private and public - to provide the wherewithal, including equipment and skills additions, to make the worker confident and produce to his or her optimum. He said it was obvious the International Monetary Fund (IMF) was not disposed to the impending wage review, because of the high proportion of public sector wage bill to revenue and the often cited numbers in the public sector.

Dr Baah said that position could not be tenable against the need to pay public sector workers in Ghana appreciable salaries based on realistic indices given the fact that Ghanaian public sector workers are currently one of the lowest paid in Africa. He said given the projected 23 million Ghanaian population, the workforce in the public sector could not be an anomaly, comparing the ratio of public sector workers to populations of some other countries. Dr Baah wondered how government would resolve the big personnel shortfalls in the health and education sectors when they (government) had to put employment on hold. He urged government to reform the tax machinery in the country to save formal sector workers the arbitrary high taxes, when people who were making more money contrived to escape the tax net. 26 Oct 09