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Former Rector of GIMPA Professor Stephen Adei
Public sector workers should not have had a pay rise this year, said former GIMPA rector Professor Stephen Adei.
He noted in an interview with Kofi Oppong Asamoah of Class91.3FM on the Class Morning Show that no group of workers should have had a pay rise given that Ghana’s economy has been disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic and that the country has plunged into an economic crisis. crisis.
On August 18, 2021, some aggrieved public sector workers demonstrated in the nation’s capital, Accra, against the 4% and 7% increase in their base wages for 2021 and 2022, respectively.
They were also not in favor of the 6% and 8% increase in the national minimum wage for 2021 and 2022, respectively.
One of the protesters told Class News: ‘We just want to tell the politician that the country does not belong to them alone and that public sector workers also deserve a slice of the pie and that 4% do are nothing to write home about ”.
“So we just want at the end of the demonstration to hear from the government that they have changed their decision, that they return to the negotiating table and that they give us nothing less than 25 percent.”
However, Professor Adei said, rather than getting agitated, officials should consider themselves lucky that they even got a 4% pay rise.
” … The people say [the] 4 percent [pay rise] is not enough; in fact, to be honest, it should have been zero percent. Yes, ”Professor Adei told Kofi Oppong Asamoah in the pre-recorded interview aired on Wednesday, September 29, 2021.
“The situation in the country is such that other than that – I have to qualify it – you cannot say zero percent for them and other people get 70 percent or an increase,” said the former president of the country. Ghana Revenue Authority Board of Directors.
“It should have been zero anyway because the message should have been sent that we are in crisis, so we cannot have ‘Monkey dey chop baboon dey work’,” he explained.
He said the president’s decision not to accept a pay rise for himself and the executive was enough to signal the rest of the country that it was time to make sacrifices.
“The president is out and yet in Ghana good news is not good news. The president said that all the increase that was recommended, he is not going to accept it; as well as his vice and his ministers, and you know, it was just flash in the pan, “observed Professor Adei.
“He [president] gave the instruction from the start and what he did is that, always, automatically, the Comptroller and Accountant General paid it into his account for reimbursement. But whatever, be it outcry [of Ghanaians] or not, if you are a leader, this is a good example. He says, “We are in trouble and therefore I will – whether he be pushed or reacted – aim for zero.” Then other people should know that their 4% is actually higher, ”Prof Adei said.
“But parliamentarians should come out and say something quickly,” he noted.
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