The Fair Wages and Salaries Commission (FWSC) will from September settle all pending salary arrears owed the various public institutions. The implementation of the new pay policy has left in its wake some salary arrears due to changes in the salaries of workers as well as outstanding arrears before the commencement of the new pay structure. Some 105 institutions are to be migrated onto the single spine salary structure, a pay policy that is expected to eliminate all disparities in public service wages. According to the Chief Executive of the FWSC, George Smith Graham, there are agitations because of the inequities in the existing pay policy. "Yes, in the public service, you can say that the salaries are low but we have those who were low and those who were low, so you might not be happy with your salary level at the moment, somebody else may be ridiculously low" he explained. This means that not all workers experienced quantum leaps in their salaries after being migrated onto the new policy. "When we did the pay comparison before the implementation of the single spine, we looked at the average pay in the public service, and we looked at institutions that were above the public sector average and those below the public sector average. We have some institutions that were as high as 300% above the public sector average and we had some institutions like the Police Service who were negative 59.6% below" he said. The new pay policy came into effect in July 2010 with the Police Service as the first beneficiary. Of the 105 institutions to be migrated, 75% of workers are from the Ghana Education Service, the Ghana Health Service and the Civil and Local Government Services. With a deadline to conclude by end of year 2011, forty three institutions have so far been migrated. Most institutions have not completed their mapping data and some also have errors, a situation slowing down the migration process. Another challenge impeding the smooth implementation of the exercise is the high expectation and pressure to migrate all institutions at once but Mr. Smith-Graham was quick to add that some institutions are also reluctant to be migrated onto the new pay structure. For now, the CEO of FWSC assures that the migration process is on cause for a number of institutions including the Forestry Commission and the Judicial Service and they will see a change in their salaries by August or September this year. Story by Adwoa Dansowaa Awuku/ Multi TV/ Ghana