Some officials from the South Korea Embassy, Korea Institute for Development Strategy (KDS) and Korea International Co-operation Agency (KOICA) on Monday presented a progress report to government towards the implementation of a performance-based pay administration in Ghana.

The report was presented by Professor Park Kyung-Bae, Vice President of the Korea Institute for Development Studies and Head of the Project Team, to Mr Yaw Osafo-Maafo, the Senior Minister, during a courtesy call in Accra.

The report contained the recommendations for Performance-based Public Human Resource Management (HRM) System, aimed at improving performance and productivity of public/civil servants working in the public sector.

Korean officials present at the meeting included Ms Jee Young Kim, Deputy Head of Mission, South Korea Embassy in Ghana and Mr Yukyum Kim, the Country Director of KOICA.

Other Ghanaian Ministers of state and government officials at the meeting included, Mr Ignatius Baffour-Awuah, the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, Mr Anthony Akoto Osei, the Minister of Monitoring and Evaluation, Dr Edward Kwapong, Acting Chief Executive Officer of the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission (FWSC), Mr Earl Ankrah, Head of Public Affairs of the FWSC and Mr Ernest Zume, Public Relations Officer at the Office of the Senior Minister.

Over the past two-years, KOICA had been funded a knowledge-sharing programme, which saw 36 high-level Ghanaian government officials from central management agencies visiting South Korea in 2017 and 2018, to understudy the Korean public administration system to help develop action plans for implementation in Ghana.

Additionally, some senior-level government officials drawn from the Public Services Commission, Office of the Head of the Civil Service, Fair Wages and Salaries Commission and the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations, as well as Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), participated in a capacity-building workshop on Performance-based Public Human Resource Management Course.

The final leg of the course was held in Accra from August 18-27, this year, which saw a team of Korean professors from the Korea Institute for Development Strategy engaging 50 senior-level human resource officers from the MDAs in a five-day seminar towards the development of an Action Plan for the implementation of the programme.

So far, the Government of Ghana has contracted a loan of US$35 million from the World Bank to support 16 public sector agencies and institutions to improve upon their performances and enhance productivity.

The pilot phase of the programme is expected to be rolled out at the Ghana Education Service and the Ghana Health Service since they have the highest number of employees in the public sector.

Among the objectives for implementing a performance-based public HRM system was to improve public service delivery and rationalise policies on public sector remuneration and benefits.

The Senior Minister suggested that the Korean Government should extend the programme, which ends in August this year, so that Korean human resource experts could participate in the implementation and evaluation of the programme.

He commended the Korean government for providing the opportunity for Ghana to understudy its public administration system, noting that, every public or private sector institution that did not outline clear plan for measuring human resource performance and productivity was bound to fail.