Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, has stated government will not scrap the Single Spine Salary Structure despite several calls for the system to be replaced.
Implantations of the salary structure started in 2010 by government to attract, retain and motivate public service workers to enhance effectiveness in service delivery and improved productivity.
Policy think tank, IMANI Ghana has however said the principle behind the Single Spine Salary Structure for which all workers of the same qualification should be paid equally is inappropriate and misplaced.
It has thus proposed a gradual phasing out of the policy rather than a one-time scrapping of it as suggested by others.
Other individuals and organizations also hold the view the salary structure should be scrapped because it is crippling the economy.
But speaking on the sidelines of the inauguration of a tax committee for the oil and gas industry, Finance Minister Ofori-Atta held a different view on the issue, and allayed the fears of public sector workers of any attempt to scrap the salary system.
He admitted the salary structure was taking a chunk of Ghana’s total revenue generation, for which reason government was considering a relook at the structure with the view to ensuring productivity.
“We are putting together a taskforce to look at the whole revenue regime because that is creeping up in terms of percentage of the revenue that we have and if 650,000 people are taking off 35 per cent of all of our revenue, this is something that we have to examine,” he said.
He said a national conversation on the matter would soon start, saying “…how do you create productivity so people can earn more and how do you rationalise it so that raises are properly done. That honest dialogue i think we will start.”
By Eben Agyekum-Boateng|TV3|3news.com|Ghana