Deputy Minister for Labour and Employment, Bright Wereko Brobbey says it will find it difficult to pay the newly agreed increment in minimum wage and base pay for the 2024 working year.

After more than 20 hours in two days of negotiating, government agreed to increase the base pay averagely by 23% and minimum wage by 22%.

This is expected to take effect from January 1, 2024 to June 2024.

The raise is however, to be readjusted upwards with an additional 2% from July 2024 to December 2024, bringing the total increase for the year to 25%.

Labour had originally tabled a demand for over 70% increment in the base pay for 2024.

The demand, it had insisted, was to cushion workers against the rising cost of living in the country.

“We agreed that the minimum wage would be reviewed upwards by 22%, averaging from GH₵14.88 to GH₵18.15…We have concluded that the national base pay will be increased by 23% between 1st January, 2024 to 30 June 2024 and subsequently an additional 2% increment will be added making it 25% from July to December 2024,” said the Minister for Employment and Labour Relations, Ignatius Baffour Awuah.

But despite the agreement, the government says the implementation will be a bit of a challenge for now.

Deputy Minister for Labour and Employment, Bright Wereko Brobbey says government will incur a budget deficit by agreeing to the increment because it was aiming to end the negotiations for base pay at 19%.

"The 23% I am told even brings a budget overrun by 3.7 billion and this is huge. So as to how Finance will be able to finance it is it what all of us are looking at," he said.

Meanwhile, the Secretary General of TUC, Dr Yaw Baah, says while the offer fell short of their expectations they will reluctantly accept it.