The implementation of the Single Spine Salary (SSS) policy will now take off in July this year, instead of January as proposed, the Chief Executive of the Fair Wages and Salaries Com-mission, George Smith-Graham, has announced. "Though the status of the implementation of the policy is at an advanced stage, the shift in the dateline will allow the government to adopt a credible minimum wage to serve as the base for the SSS implementation," he explained. "We are working to ensure that the first payment of the SSS will actually reflect in the pockets of public servants in July," he added. This means beneficiary public servants will receive salary arrears for the period January to June. Mr. Smith-Graham was delivering an address on the Status of the Implementation of the Single Spine Pay Structure at the third quadrennial national delegates’ conference of the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) in Accra Monday. President John Atta Mills will open the five-day conference today, on the theme, 'Investing in people to achieve quality education by 2015’. Mr. Smith-Graham said that "though the government accepted to implement the policy in January this year, it is of the view that the first six months should be used to address technical issues to enhance the effective implementation of the policy." He said a careful review of the roadmap of the policy showed that the commission had not been able to meet time-lines for the commencement of education on the SSPP, negotiations with organised labour on negotiable aspects, placement of all job holders on the new pay structure and test run of the policy by the Controller and Accountant General's Department. "These developments have occurred for a number of reasons, including the late issuance of the government's White Paper," he stressed. Mr. Smith-Graham said "in spite of the setbacks, public education on the policy is on-going," adding that "some organised labour and associations are engaged in sensitising their constituents.” He said the commission had, with the assistance of Cabinet, engaged a communication consultancy firm to assist in the sensitisation programme, stressing that "the Parliamentary Select Committee on Social Welfare, Employment and State Enterprises as well as the Clerk and other senior officers of the Parliamentary Service are part of the broad public education and sensitisation strategy." He pointed out that, the editors and reporters of some selected media houses had also been engaged to help in the public education and sensitisation campaign to deepen appreciation of the new pay policy by giving positive and well explained information to the public. The negotiable aspects of the policy, Mr. Smith-Graham said, "have to do with the commission and organised labour agreeing on the base pay and relativities on the spine, allowances to be consolidated and other allowances and conditions of employment of target institutions." He, however, explained that the negotiations on the base pay were contingent on the completion of discussions on the National Daily Minimum Wage (NDMW). "Organised Labour has given the clearest and strongest indication yet, that though it is in favour of implementing the SSS, it would not rush into any negotiation on the base pay without knowing the outcome of the discussions on the NDMW," he emphasised. Mr. Smith-Graham said the process of migrating salary data onto the SSS had begun, saying "the Controller and Accountant General's Department (CAGD) has already started work to off-load salary data from the various public service institutions onto the SSS." He said "a platform for the SSS has been created and as soon as negotiations on the base pay and relativities have been concluded, the spine structure will be computed and activated for test run by the CAGD." Source: Ghanaian Times