Govt Can't Afford Big Salary Hikes

President John Agyekum Kufuor yesterday said it would be near impossible to have appreciable increase in salary levels unless there was a dramatic increase in revenue.

The President said the nation's current resources will not allow the salary levels that he has heard being advocated in some quarters. He was speaking in this year's State of the Nation Address to Parliament in Accra.

Reacting to calls for an increase in salaries close to the near 100 per cent increase in petroleum prices, President Kufuor told workers that the Minister of Finance had been tasked to ensure that there was some cushion for the people against the petroleum and utilities price increases.

He attributed the reason for government's inability to meet workers' demands to the high trend of expenditure on emoluments in the public sector, which he said was now more than 70 per cent of total government revenue. He said this did not mean that government was unmindful of the plight of the public worker.

President Kufuor appealed to the people to resist the temptation to go down the path that would take the nation back to the high inflation regime and a reversal of all the gains that were being made and which would nullify all the sacrifices that have been made by everybody.