The Fair Wages and Salaries Commission (FWSC) has stated that the new phase of the Single Spine Salary structure will factor in productivity as a yardstick for determining the wage of a public sector worker.

According to the Acting Director, Research, Monitoring, Evaluation, and Head of Public Affairs of the Commission, Earl Ankrah, productivity has never been a yardstick to determine the wage a public sector worker deserves.

Mr. Ankrah, who made the disclosure on the Super Morning Show, on Tuesday, June 7, said public sector workers are currently paid based on the expectations of their job and not necessarily their output.

However, he said the Commission is seeking to review this.

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

“Although the productivity aspect is supposed to be a part of the Single Spine, we’ve not started but during this year’s National Labour Conference, participants signed a communique that said the Single Spine must be reviewed and I believe the review process will factor in the productivity aspect of salaries,” he stated.

Mr. Ankrah was speaking on the back of Government Statistician, Professor Samuel Kobina Annim’s claim that public sector workers are generally overpaid for work done.

According to the Professor, on average, 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.

Following his statement, he has come under huge criticism. The Civil and Local Government Staff Association, Ghana (CLOGSAG), has asked him to provide data to back his assertion.

CLOGSAG, in a letter signed by its Deputy Executive Secretary, Kojo Krakani, called on the Government Statistician to provide, among other things, indicators and the sample size used to conduct the research.

“The Civil and Local Government Staff Association, Ghana (CLOGSAG) has noted your findings that Public Sector workers are being overpaid.”

“The Association would appreciate if you could provide us with the indicators used in your research, the sample size, the stratification and any other relevant data information to enable us to have an objective assessment of your findings. Kindly treat as a matter of urgency,” the statement concluded.

Also, a political science lecturer at the University of Ghana has asked the Government Statistician to refrain from classifying all public sector workers as overpaid.

“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 a JoyNews interview.

Meanwhile, Prof. Annim has denied making the claim.