Accra, March 24, GNA - Mr George Smith-Graham, Chief Executive of the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission (FWSC), on Thursday said about 36 public institutions had so far migrated onto the Single Spine Salary Structure (SSSS).

He noted that education on the policy was still low making some workers to have high hopes on their salaries, which led to some agitations and called on media personnel, who had the requisite knowledge to educate the public about the policy.

"The level of ignorance as far as the Single Spine is concerned is very high. It was during agitations of the prison officers and that of teachers that people started to pay attention on the structure," he added.

Mr Smith-Graham was addressing a workers' durbar at Ghana News Agency (GNA) in Accra to throw more light on the progress made so far about the implementation of the programme.

It is part of the Commission's educational programme to interact with institutions about the policy.

He explained that about 64 various allowances were identified during the mapping of the exercise but some of them were integrated into the Single Spine as category one allowances. Mr Smith-Graham explained that during evaluation, the retention premium system, inducement system and the public sector wide performance management systems were identified and the Commission had worked hard to ensure that everything was done systematically. He said public sector workers were now under a single salary structure and advised people not to make mistakes and compare qualification with job description and debunked the notion that single spine would prevent unions from negotiations. Mr Graham-Smith advised institutions including the GNA, which had received low salaries under the single spine to call for job revaluation to see how best the discrepancies could be corrected to ensure equity.

He called on all those who had problems with their salaries to petition the Complains Unit of the Commission to seek redress. On the issue of back pay on the single spine, Mr Smith-Graham said unless all institutions were migrated onto the spine, it would be difficult to settle the back pay since it was likely to collapse the economy but gave the assurance that all the back pay would be paid at the appropriate time.