The Ghana Medical Association has served notice it would be forced to abandon extra hours duty if government implements the Market Premium policy without opening negotiations on how those additional hours are paid for.

The doctors say they are currently not being paid for work done on weekends, holidays and after working hours, following the introduction of interim market premium under the Single Spine Salary Structure.

Finance Minister Seth Tekper announced Tuesday, when he presented the 2014 budget to Parliament, that the substantive market premium would come into force from January next year.

Chief Executive Officer of the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission George Smith Graham tells Joy news this would be a non negotiable lump sum amount, to be determined by government.

He noted that the interim market premium was introduced to take care of issues peculiar to certain institutions after their migration onto the new pay policy.

“Now if you look at the market premium guidelines that have been introduced by government, the guidelines are very clear as to what market premium is supposed to be done.

“Market premium is not a negotiable thing. Market premium is a prerogative of government to be able to attract and retain critical skills into government.”

The interim market premium amount doctors are benefiting from is payment for extra duty work they do.

But General Secretary of the Ghana Medical Association Dr. Frank Serebour tells Joy News they would demand that the extra duty work is paid for when the substantive market premium comes into being. 

“It is good news if they want to bring the top market premium, that means we would have to discuss our extra hours properly, so that we will know precisely how much is paid per hour that we do, and what rate and at what percentage so that at the end of the day we can come out clear.”

“...when market premium is implemented, will quickly have to revert back, doing the normal job that we do without doing any extra hours; because then government would have to come back and negotiate the extra hours that we do.”