CLOSAG invited to join job re-evaluation

The Fair Wages and Salary Commission (FWSC), has called on the Civil and Local Government Services Association of Ghana (CLOSAG), to take part in its job re-evaluation exercise this week.

All labour organizations except the CLOSAG were taking advantage of the opportunity for job re-evaluation to resolve their concerns.

Mr George Smith Graham, Chief Executive of the FWSC said these at a forum for public and civil servants in Ho on Monday.

He said the FWSC was the legally constituted body on Public Sector wages and it could not understand how any group could opt out of its jurisdiction and be able to give the best package to its members.

Mr. Graham said the FWSC was ready to reach a compromise with all organized labour groups to resolve outstanding issues to ensure the sustainability of the proposed Single Spine Pay Policy (SSSP).

He alleged that CLOSAG had refused to provide the FWSC with jobs it considered as unfairly evaluated but referred it the Office of Head of Civil Service.

Mr. Graham said though not obliged to do so, the Commission nevertheless obtained such information from the OHCS and was waiting to engage the CLOSAG.

He said until negotiation had been concluded nobody could talk of base pay and relativity under the SSSP as being alleged by CLOSAG.

Mr. Graham said the SSSP was a potential trigger that could collapse the Ghanaian economy and therefore needed to be handled with great circumspection.

He said the SSSP should not be judged in its first year of implementation because some not all will gain in the first year but nobody would be worse off.

Mr. John Yaw Amankrah, Director of Pay Policy of the FWSC, said studies have shown that since the inception of the Fourth Republic, government’s wage bills appreciate considerably in immediately before elections.

He said the government’s huge wage bill was also triggered by the separation of a number of public services from the civil service with their own salary structures and consequent disparities in salaries.

Mr. Amankrah said it was to correct these anomalies that the immediate past government initiated the SSSP which was taken up by the current government to correct iniquities in public sector wages and salaries.

He said to be able to do that it was necessary to carry out job evaluations based on 13 criteria “but unfortunately some people were only talking about qualification, which is only one of the 13 criteria.”

Mr. Amankrah said the salary levels have been categorized mean, median and maximum and said the implementation of the SSS was based on sustainability and not ability to pay.

Mr Vincent Adzato-Ntem, Volta Regional Co-ordinating Director, called on labour groups to take advantage of the opportunity offered them to engage the FWSC so that government’s intentions in adopting the SSSP could be achieved through consensus.

Source: GNA