Accra, Aug. 19, GNA - The Joint Consultative Forum on Friday called on the Government to ensure the conclusion of salary negotiations for 2005 by Friday or it would advise itself.

"If no meaningful solution is found to the undue delay that has bedevilled the 2005 salary negotiations, the Forum will advise itself," it said in a statement in Accra.

The Forum comprises the Civil Servants' Association (CSA); Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT); Ghana Registered Nurses Association (GRNA) and the Judiciary Service Staff Association of Ghana (JUSAG).

Mr Smart Y. A. Chigabatia of the CSA and Chairman of the Forum; Mrs Irene Duncan-Adanusa, General Secretary of GNAT; Mrs Alice D.A. Allotey, President of GRNA and Mr P. K. Afful, General Secretary of JUSAG, signed the statement.

The Forum said long meetings to reach agreement on this year's salary increase had not helped, even though the Government conceded that public sector salaries were low with distortions that ought to be corrected and that a minimum wage increase of 20 per cent had been announced.

The statement said on May 21 last year, the Government negotiated and arrived at a new statutory salary structure for the 2004 financial year but Government unilaterally and drastically slashed it in August 2004.

The Forum said it submitted notice for the commencement of the 2005 negotiations on November 1, last year, stating that the "slashed salary" should be reverted to as the starting point of negotiations.

The question of reversion to the 2004 salary levels was settled on April 4 this year and a communiqu=E9 reaffirmed that "the 2005 salary adjustment requested by the Forum was outstanding because the reversion was not a salary increase", the statement said.

The statement said the Forum had requested for meetings to consider the substantive salary increase for 2005 but the negotiations had dragged on without any success.

"Following from the above, the Forum has no choice than to issue this ultimatum to the Government that if by Friday, the 19th of August, 2005, no agreement has been reached, our members would advise themselves." 19 Aug. 05