Business News of Tuesday, 27 July 2021
Source: classfmonline.com
2021-07-27
Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta
The Ministry of Finance has indicated that the government has not entered into any new agreement to increase the base pay of public servants to 15%.
A statement issued by the Public Relations Unit of the Ministry of Finance on 27 July 2021 said: “The attention of the government has been drawn to media publications and agitations within the public domain in respect of this ministry’s letter dated 12 July 2021 on the payment of fifteen per cent (15%) interim premium to staff of the Civil and Local Government Services (CLOGSAG)”.
“These agitations, we believe, have arisen because the public consider the above-mentioned approval to be a new agreement. The Ministry of Finance wishes to clarify that this is not a new agreement, as it has been in existence since 2016 and fully implemented in 2020,” part of the statement read.
“Since the interim premium of 15% is on the base pay, it became necessary to do the necessary adjustments to reflect the negotiated 4% increase in the public sector base pay for the 2021 financial year”, it added.
It noted: “Given the above, this ministry, as part of its communication to the Controller and Accountant-General’s Department on the implementation of the agreement on the 2021 and 2022 base pay, authorised the payment of premium and its associated arrears to CLOGSAG for 2021 in line with the existing agreement.”
The Ministry, therefore, reiterated that the “government has not granted any 15% increase in base pay to any public sector institution on the Single Spine Salary Structure”, adding that “the only adjustment on the base pay for the public service still remains the 4% for the 2021 financial year.”
“Therefore, no new agreement has been reached on the payment of premium”, the statement added.