Single Spine Policy Structure was not election year policy – Terkper

The Single Spine Salary Structure contrary to what people are saying, especially, development partners is not an election year policy, the Minister of Finance, Seth Terkper has said.

In an interview on Class FM monitored by ghanabusinessnews.com, he said the Single Spine Policy was a 2007-2008 public sector rationalisation policy which had issues earlier and all those issues have been corrected and migrated.

“Today almost all public service institutions are on the Single Spine Salary Structure. There are some positive elements with the policy which is why we did not throw it away,” he said.

According to him public sector salary needed to be rationalised and it was something that had been attempted by the Ghana Universal Salary under consolidation but was not achieved.

“So we decided to resolve the salary issues. We have come to a point that we agree on the minimum wage base pay ahead of the budget,” he added.

Mr Terpker indicated that although there are still pockets of strike actions, there is certainty, because the workers know how much they are going to earn which is good. “Remember it is not just good for the government because the private sector takes a cue from government pay, “he said.

He further noted that there is also now a wage policy within budget constraints and therefore employees and everybody will understand exactly where the economy is going.

“Today, government has paid about GH¢3 billion in arrears only on single spine which had earlier resulted in a heated debate,” he said.

In relation to the power crisis, Mr Terkper said while the government was having these challenges, it also saw prospects for the economy and so against all odds the government went to the World Bank for assistance in relation to the power crisis.

“We are bringing in an emergency power system which as we speak has resulted in an over subscription. Potentially, supply of power is going to exceed demand for the next few years and this is a great feat for a country that has come out of “Dumsor.”

“We have even stopped taking applications from independent power producers as far back as June because we are oversubscribed,” he said.

He admitted that the power crisis the country faced not too long ago was a critical disruption on economic activities.

“The plants that Volta River Authority (VRA) had, could not take on gas so they could not produce power.

Looking back on the ended power crisis, Mr Terkper explained that “when a major pipeline is disrupted it takes time to fix it and for someone whose business is going down the impatience was growing. I think it was a process and it is modest to say today we are not in that condition,” he said.

By Pamela Ofori-Boateng

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