The Fair Wages and Salaries Commission (FWSC) is set to join forces with the government to pay public sector workers based on their level of productivity.

This, the commission believes, will ensure efficiency and increased productivity.

Speaking on JoyNews‘ The Pulse, on Wednesday, the Chief Executive of the Commission, Benjamin Arthur said, “We agreed that Fair Wages should take steps and government should take steps to ensure that pay is linked to productivity. And that is the language we have now.”

Mr. Arthur explained that FWSC is committed to ensuring that the effort public sector workers put into their jobs reflects on the salaries they receive.

“This year, we are keen on answering the question of what are we paying for and when I say what are we paying for, I mean efficiency and productivity.

“So this year, we have taken the necessary steps to make sure that institutions will set their target, individuals will have their target set, and at the end of the year, we will have a measurement set to know what each institution has been able to achieve and what individuals have been able to achieve, so that we will be able to link the job to pay. So maybe for the first time we will be able to achieve this,” he said.

Additionally, he stated that the current pay structure is based on ranks. However, after training staff on the new pay policies, it would be based on the level of productivity and promotions.

“There’s a pay structure that you need to move on. So as you move on to the pay structure, we will want to have your coordinates, your location, and we are saying that your location is on the pay structure apart from on the vertical which is by promotion and grade.

“On the horizontal, It has to be informed by your performance. And we all agree to that. So we need to pilot it. We need to sensitize, we need to train where it’s necessary to train. You can’t just lord this over people overnight,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Commission has directed heads of public sector institutions to conduct internal payroll audits.

This is to identify and eliminate any existing fraud or anomalies.

The Commission will be embarking on the nationwide payroll monitoring exercise in collaboration with relevant stakeholders from April 1.

It would be recalled that on June 6, 2020, the Government Statistician, Professor Samuel Kobina Annim, said 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 has, therefore, called for the creation of a Public Productivity Committee of Parliament to work like the Public Accounts Committee and ensure that Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) and the public sector in general, deliver output commensurate with their earnings.

It would be recalled that on June 7, the then Acting Director, Research, Monitoring, Evaluation, and Head of Public Affairs of the Commission, Earl Ankrah said productivity is not a factor in the calculation of the salaries of public sector workers.

According to him, even though the Commission is supposed to add it to the calculation per the Single Spine Policy, it has not yet started.

“It is supposed to be a factor. Straight from the onset of the Single Spine Policy, it was supposed to be a factor. We called it linking pay to productivity, but so far, we have not started implementing that aspect of productivity in the salary.”

“So at the moment to determine a salary, we go through job evaluation and place the worker onto the Single Spine Structure which determines what salary they earn.”