23% salary increment will be suicidal if not linked to productivity – Austin Gamey

A Labour Expert Austin Gamey has said that salary increments should be linked to productivity to ensure that the country grows its Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

He says salaries cannot be paid just for the sake of it.

He was commenting on the 23 per cent salary increment that has been granted by the government to public sector workers.

Justifying the increment, the Minister of Labour and Employment Ignatius Baffuor Awuah said that it was done considering the current economic situation in the country.

The government on Tuesday, November 14 granted a 23 percent salary increment to public sector workers for the year 2024. The salary increment will cover January to June, 2024 while another increment of 2 percent will be implemented for between July to December, 2024.

The Minister also announced an increment in the daily minimum wage from GHS14.88 to GHS18.15.

He said “At the end of our negotiations at the tripartite level, we agreed that the minimum wage be reviewed upwards by 22 percent, from 14.88 Cedis to 18.15 Cedis.

“Subsequently, the public sector joint negotiations committee between all unions within the public space under the single spine and the government also entered into negotiations to determine the national base pay.

“I am happy to report to you that a few minutes after a very difficult meeting, taking the current state of the  economy into consideration and also taking into consideration the agreement that as a nation we have with the IMF in making sure that we stay on course  in achieving all the targets that we have set to achieve for ourselves, and to also get all the benchmarks right,  we have concluded that the national based pay by increased by 23 percent between January 1, 2024, to 31st June 2024 and subsequently an additional 2 percent increment will be added to the 23 percent making it 25 percent from July to December 2024.”

Reacting to this on the Ghana Tonight show on TV3 Tuesday, November 14, Mr Gamey said “It has to be based on productivity, indeed that is what a civilized society should. So that people will be paid based on their contribution, you cannot pay just for the sake of it.”

He added “We have to consciously plan as a nation to be a productive nation, it is not going to be by default, we have to plan it and ensure it is done, where we are now it will be suicidal if we don’t take care.”

Asked what he meant by suicidal, he answered: “We cannot just be paying for the sake of payment, we pay for time,  so if you go to work, you have to work within that time frame, once you complete your task you will be appraised based on that and you can be rewarded, and there will be an explosion of enhanced productivity in the nation, our GDP will grow, we will have money to take care of other things.”

Source:3news.com