Government Offers 5000 Cedis; TUC Wants More

Government has offered to pay a minimum wage of five thousand cedis, increasing the current figure by eight hundred cedis.

However the Trades Union Congress has rejected this, and demanded instead, six thousand cedis. The disagreement between the government and the TUC resulted in the postponement of yesterday’s meeting of the Tripartite Committee, comprising the Ghana Employers’ Association, the TUC and the government.

According to the Finance Minister, Yaw Osafo-Maafo, the decision to offer five thousand cedis as the minimum wage was after a review of the performance of the economy where the expected average inflation for the end of the year was taken into consideration.

Osafo-Maafo said discussions on the minimum wage is still on going and expressed the optimism that the stakeholders would reach an agreement by Monday 23rd April.

The Finance Minister however noted that the country has a big problem, which must be resolved. He said there is a yawning gap between revenue and expenditure saying "our revenue cannot much our expenditure" but government cannot borrow money to pay salaries. He expressed the hope that the stakeholders would come to a compromise on the matter and help government control deficits.