Former Deputy Finance Minister Abena Osei-Asare has debunked reports that government has frozen the salaries of public sector workers.

According to her, in spite of the adverse impact of COVID-19 on the economy, government through the tripartite will engage labour for a common ground relative to wages.

Speaking to EIB Network’s Parliamentary Correspondent Ibrahim Alhassan, the Atewa East MP who still operates from the Finance Ministry stated all factors will be considered when the engagement starts in April, 2021.

“Usually we hold public sector negotiations in April so we are really looking forward to having the negotiations with all the relevant stakeholders as we have been doing and then we can take it up from there. Once again, I want to say that we are very grateful to them for the support we’ve enjoyed from them. Come April, 2021, we will begin the public sector negotiations.

“I don’t think we’ve said anywhere that there’s a freeze for three years. What we do is that we sit with the public sector joint negotiation team from the government side, employers as well as the unions and together we are going to sit and decide how best at this stage in this country what we all can do to sustain jobs, job security that we all need and at the same time boost economic growth and to help us get where we really want to after this adverse effect of the pandemic on our economy.”

The Technical Adviser at the Finance Ministry Dr Samuel Nii Noi Ashong has stated that public sector workers expecting a huge wage increment will not get it because the Ministry says there is simply no money to meet such demands.

And indeed this situation is likely to persist until 2024 as the Technical Adviser at the Ministry Dr Samuel Nii Noi Ashong called on the country to tighten its belt for harder times.

He disclosed this while contributing to a discussion on the budget organised by the Ghana National Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GNCCI) on Wednesday.

“If you look at the Budget, COVID-19 is not expected to abate until the end of 2023 and we’re all looking to be tightening our belts for a while and people should not be expecting huge wage increases in the course of the next few years. This is because we don’t have money to pay for it.