Mr Samuel Owusu-Agyei, Minister of State for Public Sector Reform, on Thursday cautioned all stakeholders in the Pay Policy Reform Exercise to balance their interests with the national interests for the sake of harmony. He said: “If we all put our shoulders to the wheel, we should be able to produce a new pay policy which should improve the morale and productivity of public servants and also establish equity in public sector salary administration.” Mr Owusu-Agyei, who together with Nana Akomea, Minister of Manpower, Youth and Employment, was updating journalists in Accra on efforts made by the government in the area of Pay Policy Reform denied that the process had delayed because the consultant was a foreigner who was not conversant with the grading structure used in Ghana. “The consultant is a foreigner but the Human Resource Managers engaged to do the actual work are Ghanaians and are doing good job,” he said. He said the process delayed because additional job classifications were added and, moreover, most subvented organisations did not submit their details of allowances to the Ministry early enough to guide the consultant in the work. He said so far about 9,000 benchmark jobs had been evaluated and these were expected to be increased to 18,000, the biggest to be undertaken in the country. Mr Owusu-Agyei assured the public that the government was concerned about the welfare of all workers and would do everything to improve salaries and service delivery to cater for all. He said the consultant was expected to submit the final report in July 2008 to enable the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning to determine the cost implications for the 2009 budget. The Minister said at the second stakeholders’ forum in March, it was recommended that the perceived wrong placement on the proposed 28-band grading structure should be thoroughly investigated and addressed prior to the finalization of the grading structure. The forum also recommended that for effective placement, all jobs in the public sector should be graded since at the moment 1,806 benchmark jobs out of 8,000 had been graded. It again recommended that equity be introduced into salary administration in the public services in line with the principles of “equal pay for equal worth”, that the single spine salary structure should be directly related to the proposed 28-level grading structure and that the development of the single spine should be done independently of government’s negotiation with labour. The forum further recommended, among others, that placement on the single spine should be done on the basis of job values and not the earnings of jobholders or incumbents. It said the quantification of all or part of non-cash allowances provided to public servants should not form part of the current exercise of introducing the single spine pay policy. The modalities for monetization should, however, be discussed extensively with stakeholders in order to reach an acceptable basis that could be implemented in the medium term. Source: GNA