Mr. Kofi Asamoah, the Secretary General of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), has expressed the union’s commitment to the implementation of the Single Spine Pay Policy (SSPP).
He said despite the socio-economic challenges, the implementation of the SSPP had been a good public pay policy.
Mr Asamoah was speaking at the second National Forum on the Implementation of the Single Spine Pay Policy at Takoradi in the Western Region.
The two-day forum was organized by the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations, in conjunction with the Ministry of Finance and its Social Partners.
Participants at the meeting were expected to review the implementation of the SSPP, with special focus on the recommendations from the Ho Forum in August 7, 2013 and to agree on strategies for the implementation of the second phase, which focuses on linking pay to productivity in the public sector.
Mr Asamoah commended the government and its social partners for showing good faith with the implementation of the policy.
He said in spite of the implementation challenges and the increased wage bill associated with the policy, there were outstanding issues such as the full implementation of the market premium, the Category 2 and 3 allowances, the annual increment outstanding and post migration issues that needed to be tackled.
Mr Seth Terkper, Minister of Finance, said the implementation of the SSPP had made a significant impact on government’s fiscal management.
He said in order to ensure fiscal discipline in the system, government had kept a fine balance between compensation and salaries and wages, as well as interest payments on loans and capital expenditure.
He said interest payments on loans were now higher than capital expenditure and as such, the government was taking measures to address them.
Mr Terkper said that the government, after paying for statutory expenditure, was left with less revenue to spend on capital expenditure.
He said compensation including wages and salaries, social security and gratuity accounted for the greater portion of government’s recurrent expenditure.
He said borrowing was also contributing to the rising interest, adding that the government was devising a measure to tackle the problem.
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