The Ghana Trade Union Congress (TUC) is questioning government’s decision to consider a freeze on pay increases for workers this year.
According to the labour organisation the claim by government that that the single spine pay policy is one of the key causes of the country’s economic challenges as suggested by the finance minister is “strange” and unfactual.
“We find government’s statement made symbolically, on April Fool’s Day full of inconsistencies. A critical analysis of the policy statement leaves us with one obvious conclusion: that Government has once again demonstrated that it is totally insensitive to the harsh economic and social conditions the working people of Ghana and their families are facing”, the TUC declared in a statement.
In a statement signed by the TUC General Secretary, Kofi Asamoah in response to the Finance and Economic Planning Minister, Seth Terkper’s, presentation to Parliament on April 1, 2014, the TUC said its convinced Ghana’s economic challenges is as a result of how the economy is being “mismanaged”.
“In other words, the main reason for the economic crisis has to do with the wrong policies adopted by Government to manage the economy.”
Instead the TUC said “What we need are policies that will take Ghana out of the current situation where over 8 million out of the 26 million Ghanaians find themselves in poverty despite all the natural and human resources endowment in the country, including oil.”
Finance Minsiter on Tuesday, April 1 told Parliament as part of measures to rationalise government expenditure this year “a proposal of a moratorium on public sector wage increases in 2014 through the public sector wage negotiation process, continuation of the policy of a net freeze on employment into some sectors of the public service” amongst others.
Click here to read the full statement by TUC
By: Evans Effah/citifmonline.com/Ghana