A political science lecturer at the University of Ghana has demanded that the Government Statistician, Professor Samuel Kobina Annim, refrains from classifying all public sector workers as overpaid.

Prof. Annim in an inaugural lecture at the University of Cape Coast last Thursday, said while earnings averaged about GH¢3,420 for the public sector worker, output in the sector averaged about GH¢1,420, less than half the earnings.

Speaking on Joy FM’s Top Story on Monday, Professor Ransford Gyampo, stated that it is disingenuous and academically hypocritical to lump all the different segments of public servants together.

He disaggregated public sector workers in his interview with JoyNews.

According to him, there are three segments of public sector workers, they are; those who are appointed not based on Max Weber’s concept of meritocracy, those based on meritocracy and Article 71 office holders and political appointees. Therefore, it is unfair for the groups to be lumped together.

“Any serious academic knows that when you talk about public servants, they are not necessarily a homogenous population and so it is disingenuous for anyone to attempt to lump all public servants together and make such a sweeping assessment,” he said.

In his view, “an assertion like this that lumps all public sector workers together and say that they earn more than they produce can only come from an academic who has partisan lenses.”

He, therefore called for a probe into the census reports produced under Prof. Annim's watch. This, he explained is because there may be a possibility that “they don’t speak to reality.”

It would be recalled that the Government Statistician, Professor Samuel Kobina Annim, stated that workers in the public sector are generally overpaid for work done.

The Government Statistician said averagely, public sector workers were paid double for their output.

He, therefore, called for the creation of a Public Productivity Committee of Parliament to work as the Public Accounts Committee and ensure that Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) and the public sector, in general, deliver output that is commensurate with their earnings.

Prof Gyampo responded by saying that the Government Statistician's remark is a disservice to those who shaped him for his position.

“First of all, he must know that we produced him. Public servants in their capacity as teachers produced him.”

He went on to describe the lecture as the “most disappointing inaugural lecture.”

According to him, it is inhumane for any academic to make claims “that palpably disregard the toil and hard work of some real public workers” adding that he is offended by such an assertion.