Ignatius Baffour-Awuah
GOVERNMENT HAS announced a seven (7%) percent increment in the base pay of public sector workers for 2022.
Employment and Labour Relations Minister, Ignatius Baffour-Awuah, who made this known, said the increment was initially fixed at 4 percent in 2021 but has been increased to 7 percent this year.
Speaking at the 90th anniversary ceremony of the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) in Kumasi, Mr. Baffour Awuah said the increment takes immediate effect.
“In return, we had to negotiate with the leadership of Organised Labour, and in the process, we had to agree that we had to be modest in our request on the national kitty. The beautiful thing is that we are moving on, and we had agreed that coming into this current year, the 4 percent will no longer exist and that we are going to give workers 7 percent which is an increment. It is my hope and belief that things begin to work better for the economy of our country, so that we can give our workforce a better remuneration we can be proud of,” Mr. Awuah said.
The Trade Union Congress (TUC), in 2021, agreed on the base pay increment for public sector workers as part of labour negotiations with the government.
However, after the agreement, some members of the labour unions expressed their disappointment at the percentage increase, saying it was too small.
A coalition, made up of public sector workers, thus protested in 2021 to express their anger and demanded an upward review of public sector salaries.
They insisted that the four and seven percent increment was woefully inadequate for their survival, considering the current economic hardship.
On Wednesday, August 18, 2021, a similar demonstration was held by the group in Accra to drum home their demand against the base pay increase.
The group lamented that the leadership of TUC, which was supposed to seek the interest of Ghanaian workers, had rather become a mouthpiece for the government.