The Minister for Employment and Labour Relations, Ignatius Baffuor Awuah, has revealed that the government will this year, increase the 4% salary increment for public sector workers to 7 per cent.
“We had to negotiate with the leadership of organised labour and in the process we had to agree that we also had to be modest in our request on the national kitty.
“That is how we ended at the 4%. Mr President, the beautiful thing is that we are moving on and we had agreed that coming into this current year the 4 per cent will no longer exist and that we are going to give lecturers a 7 per cent increment,” he said while speaking at the the 6th Quadrennial National Delegates Conference of the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) in Kumasi on Tuesday January 4, an event that was attended by President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.
The government had earlier last year, increased salary by 4 per cent, a decision that was heavily opposed by labour unions including GNAT.
The unions were calling for a higher percentage increment.
The President of GNAT, Ms Philipa Larsen, was reported to have said after the increment that “We are calling on the President; otherwise, there would be no peace, and the country would become ungovernable,” she warned.
According to her, “the current system of remuneration in the public sector is not fair; it favours some categories of office holders in the public service.”