The delay in completing the migration of public sector workers onto the single spine structure is partly due to the many later applications by other institutions that opted to be captured.

“In the course of the implementation process institutions, which were not initially part of the list to be migrated onto the structure, kept coming on board, which consequently delayed the completion of the migration process,” the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission Public Affairs told the Ghana News Agency on Friday.

The Commission, which initially targeted December 2011 to complete the migration exercise, said it has so far migrated 98.79% of all public service employees, representing a total of 474, 198 employees. This leaves the percentage of employees yet to be migrated at 1.21% representing 5,802 employees in 19 institutions.

Migrated workers are therefore currently “enjoying” enhanced wages and salaries for which implementation started in January 2012 under late President John Evans Atta Mills administration.

Institutions that joined in the course of the implementation included the Gaming Commission, the African Peer Review Mechanism, St. Theresa’s Handicap Centre, Postal and Courier Service, Ghana Cooperative College and the Ghana National Commission for UNESCO. All these institutions have been migrated and started receiving single spine wage and salaries.

The Commission is optimistic that the remaining 1.21% will be migrated onto the Single Spine Salary Structure before the end of 2012.

When the migration process is complete, the Commission is expected to move to the stage of negotiating categories of allowance as well as identifying critical skills in short supply within the public sector that qualified to enjoy Market Premium.

Currently, the Commission is in the process of developing the guidelines for the Market Premium. The aim to pay market Premium is to attract and retain such critical skills in the public sector.

Market Premium was not supposed to be part of the first phase of the implementation (Migration), but the Commission realized that it would be impossible to migrate certain institutions without tackling the Market Premium at least, as an interim arrangement, hence that of the medical and teaching professionals.

The Commission, therefore, is appealing to all, especially unions and associations to exercise restraint as it goes through the various phases of implementation of the new pay policy.

In a related development, the Local Government Workers Union (LGWU) has appealed to the Commission to consider giving public sector workers some special allowance because of the delay in implementing the Market Premium across board.

It said: “It is the view of the LGWU that payment of what it terms the “special allowance” will prevent sections of public sector workers wanting to embark on strike which does not augur well for the country especially at this critical time the country is preparing to go to the polls in December”.