A leading member of the Convention Peoples Party, Dr. Paa Kwesi Nduom says government should apologise for the mess that has arisen from the migration of teachers unto the Single Spine Salary Structure. Teachers across the country have expressed outrage at the anomalies in their February salaries which was the first since they were migrated unto the new pay policy. Teachers have been demonstrating against the new salary regime and have called on the government to rectify the problem before they go back to the classrooms. Speaking to Citi FM Friday, Dr. Nduom who superintended the drafting of the new pay policy when he was the Minister for Public Sector reform says government should have learnt its lesson from the migration of prison officers unto the new pay structure which also caused acrimony among the prison officers. “Nobody is accepting responsibility, that is my difficulty with this. Someone in government, whether it is in the ministry of education at the presidency, Fair Wages and Salaries Commission, somebody must come and say I’m sorry we did not check and examine the results well before they went to the banks,” he insisted. He said if the authorities had corrected the earlier anomaly with the prison officers’ salary last year, this situation would not have arisen. Dr. Nduom stated that “what we need is to ensure that the political authority is always paying attention so that whatever is going on it is reviewed in a timely manner before we put it out there.” Economic consultant, Dr. Nii Moi Thompson who agreed with Dr. Nduom’s position said some people must take the fall for such an unacceptable mass error. “Some people ought to pay the price for this kind of negligence of duty. One of the explanations we have heard was that, well, we told the teachers that they should expect problems with their salaries. It is completely unacceptable,” he stressed. Dr. Thompson said leaders should recognize that their responsibility is to solve problems and not to pass them on to people and get away with it, stressing that “I hope someone gets punished for that.” He said the culture of impunity in the public sector allows people to make such huge mistakes and get away without any punishment, adding heads should roll to ensure that it does not occur in the future. Deputy Minister of Education, Mahama Ayariga however said those concerns are legitimate but there is a need to clean up the mess before taking action against anyone found to have deliberately caused the problem. “Teachers have to be paid and they have to be paid the right salaries… For us, the most important thing now is to clear the mess,” he said. Story by Derick Romeo Adogla/Myjoyonline.com/Ghana