The member of parliament for Pru East and the ranking member on the Employment, Labour, and social welfare Committee in parliament, Dr. Kwabena Donkor has called on the government to always ensure that they match public sector workers base pay increment figures to the country’s inflation rate.
According to Pru East law maker, this will make the life of public sector workers comfortable as it will cushion them to be able to buy commodities in the market.
Speaking during an interview at Joy TV mid-day news, Dr. Donkor said in as much as the 4% and the 7% base pay increment is a significant improvement, it should always be pegged at the country’s inflation rate.
“The minimum we can do, is to relate public sector salary adjustment to the rate of inflation. The Statistical Service has given us the annual rate of inflation which is in the double figures. And we have a salary adjustment that is in single digits. Therefore, what it really means is that the purchasing power of the public sector worker has reduced. My ideal is to match the public sector salary adjustment to the rate of inflation. So that at least, in terms of real purchasing power, at least they stay the same. They suffer no deterioration”, Dr. Kwabena Donkor said.
Speaking at the 6th Quadrennial and 53rd National Delegate conference of the Ghana National Association of Teachers GNAT at Kumasi, the Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, Ignatius Bafour Awuah disclosed that due to the pandemic the government decided to cushion public sector workers hence the 4% and 7% increments.
“In the peak of the pandemic, we were able to safeguard the work of every public sector worker in Ghana including teachers, for which GNAT members were included. We had agreed that coming to this year, the four percent will no longer exist and that we are going to give workers a seven percent”, Mr. Bafour said
But reacting to the issue Dr. Kwabena Donkor emphasis that there must be a perfect correlation between the country’s inflation digits and the public sector workers’ base pay increment. This will make public sector workers more productive and therefore improve the country’s development.
