Wages C’ssion Slammed

Accra, Nov. 23, GNA - The Institute of Human Resource Management Practitioners, Ghana, on Thursday challenged the rationale for setting up a Fair Wage Commission, saying it amounted to duplication of functions and waste of scare resources.

The Institute said the proposed Commission should rather be a technical committee to be absorbed later by a restructured and well-resourced Public Service Commission (PSC), which legally is responsible for the job description and classification in the public sector.

"Therefore, Parliament should not be approached with yet another Commission whose functions would duplicate some of functions of the PSC," it said.

At a press briefing in Accra, Mr Kwadwo Asare-Bediako, Chairman of the Institute raised various issues in the public sector and said it would be expedient to rather restructure, resource and reinvigorate the PSC to play its role effectively.

He said the lack of a clear-cut job description and classification in the public sector had come about because of the flexibility in the salary structure.

Mr Asare-Bedialo explained that analytical research had shown that because of the flexibility in the system, government, over the years had succumbed to political pressure, especially from organized labour, which had brought distortions in job classification. He said the Ghana Universal Salary Structure (GUSS) saw a weak job structure mainly because it suffered constant assault of pressure to place and/or promote people at levels without due recourse to performance management.

Enumerating some recommendations to government, he called for total overhaul of human resource management in the public sector. His should be geared to achieve an integrated HR management founded on the concept of the state as a common employer, with Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) as business units.

Mr. Asare-Bediako called for a clear public sector vision, which would help develop HR architecture to facilitate its attainment. Besides, he advocated a centralized HR Agency, which must be the PSC to be responsible for developing policies, standards and procedures on all HR activities in the public sector.

"This agency should be the state's HR department, staffed with top level professionals and resourced to coordinate and advise the state as an employer and MDAs as managers on all HR issues. Mr. Asare-Bediako said a clear and comprehensive industrial relations policy must be developed to cover fundamental industrial relations philosophy, collective bargaining responsibility, procedures and machinery. The government said in its budget last Thursday that to ensure order and equity all round, it was setting up a Fair Wages Commission to oversee its implementation.

The government noted that despite gains it had made, there were problems at the labour front, resulting partly from a distorted public sector salary structure, which was also poorly administered. The Government was, therefore, using the Budget to begin the implementation of a new comprehensive public sector pay reform that emphasises equal pay for work of equal worth. "The broad objective is to aim for wage increases in line with productivity gains, cost effectiveness and efficiency," it said.