Kpessah-Whyte Is Economically Redundant

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.

If the President is serious about increasing public-sector productivity and trimming excess fat from the Government's labor expenditure, then it is about time that he relieved conspicuously redundant presidential staffers like Dr. Michael Kpessah-Whyte of their posts. The latter's job description is not very clear to me, but it well appears that he has been grossly ill-positioned to speak to labor issues by Mr. Mahama.

In the wake of the May 1 ultimatum given the National Democratic Congress (NDC) government to raise the minimum wage or prepare to face the industrial wrath of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), Dr. Kpessah-Whyte was reported to have lamely advised the public-sector labor union executives to present the Mahama government with "a well researched and coherent" policy alternative to match their call for salary and wage increments (See "Reasonable Unions Focus On Productivity, Not Just Wages - Kpessah-Whyte" MyJoyOnline.com / Ghanaweb.com 4/28/14).

One thing is clear from the patently irrational argument of the presidential staffer - and it is the stark fact that Dr. Kpessah-Whyte has absolutely no educated person's passable appreciation of the relationship between Trade Unions and Governments. As eloquently and concisely pointed out by Mr. Austin Gamey, a labor expert, the Government is the employer of the dues-paying members of the Ghana Trades Union Congress. It is, therefore, the responsibility of the sector minister, acting on behalf of the executive branch of government, to formulate and disseminate labor policies, including the setting of goals, standards and objectives vis-a-vis labor productivity. It then becomes the responsibility of public-sector labor managers and supervisors to ensure that these policies are diligently and effectively executed.

The subtext of Dr. Kpessah-Whyte's argument points clearly to the presidential staffer's desperate and grim recognition of the fact that in the economic-development sector, Mr. Mahama appears to have apocalyptically fallen on his prats. This is what New Yorkers call "Butt-Naked Failure." And just why does yours truly make such a bleak observation? Well, clearly because the TUC is essentially and fundamentally a bargaining vehicle, or institution, that serves as a mediator, or liaison, between management and labor, or in the layperson's terms, the relationship between the Government and its employees.

And oftentimes, the role of Trade Unions revolves around fair employment practices such as adequate health insurance for workers, leaves (study and maternity leaves, for example) and the payment of livable wages and salaries by the Government to its employees.

It is also not clear precisely what he means when Dr. Kpessah-Whyte asserts that "reasonable unions and union leadership tend to focus on how to help to improve the economy so that it will eventually, positively impact the welfare of workers." Is the presidential staffer, for instance, implying here that the Ghanaian worker should play dumb and stupid and passively look on with joy while scandalously overpaid and patently unproductive principals like Dr. Kpessah-Whyte took the hardworking but woefully underpaid worker to the cleaners?

What if the constant demands for salary and wage increments are provably co-related to the constant "waa-waa," or abjectly irrational and exponential, increment in the salaries and working conditions of members of the three branches of government? In other words, isn't it about time that government officials and politicians demonstrated to the perennially harried and longsuffering Ghanaian worker that they deserve their virtual sinecures?

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*Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., Ph.D.
Department of English
Nassau Community College of SUNY
Garden City, New York
April 28, 2014
E-mail: okoampaahoofe@optimum.net
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