Government Statistician, Professor Samuel Kobina Annim, has called for the collaborative support of all institutions, especially those whose administrative duty is to collect data, to help operationalize the measurement of productivity.

He revealed that the Ghana Statistical Service is currently in talks with the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission on how to really operationalize the measurement of productivity.

“But it’s not only these two institutions that are going to make this work; we need the collaborative support of all the other institutions, especially the institutions that produce this data set just by performance of their administrative responsibilities.

“So definitely the Comptroller and Accountant-General’s Department has all the data on the earnings, and that is why we say that at the end of the year, we should give an account of how statistics is informing our economy and that is not happening just because some of the things are difficult to measure and some of the things for some reason they don’t want to bring them to the table for discussion,” he said.

The Government Statistician, Professor Samuel Kobina Annim, last week raised concerns about how workers in the public sector were generally overpaid.

He said while earnings averaged about GH¢3,420 for public sector workers, output in the sector averaged about GH¢1,420, less than half their earnings.

“What people earn should be equal to their output and be equal to what they spend. There is something wrong and such gaps should be closed in the country’s quest for real development.”

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.