Wereko-Brobbey writes: Single Spine 6, Ghana 1
“If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys” is a statement that has caused angst and discordant noises in an otherwise very cordial relationship between me and all current media partners in the last week.
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After months of dithering and lack of clarity, I went on the ‘offensive’ and decided to test my worth in Ghana cedis for this and other ‘pearls of wisdom’ in my post- retirement life.
My spat with my ‘benefactors’ coincided with the biggest and most significant victory of the Black Stars over Egypt. Basking in the reflected glory of the gargantuan rollover of the pharaohs, I was distracted momentarily by the observation that GNPC had oiled our now certain passage to Brazil by dipping into our oil wealth to offer US$15,000 each to our boys, even as some “ahooyaa” people moaned (I wonder if they rejoiced too).
Two events quickly brought me crashing down from the dizzy heights of the soccer victory. First, the ongoing strike by CLOGSAG made sure I could not assist family folks to fast-track the acquisition of new biometric travel documents because the Passport Office was closed.
Then the Junior Okyeame Ofosu Kwakye crowed that GH¢11 billion, nearly all the revenue from the taxes extorted from hardworking Ghanaians, was to be paid as wages to those on “aban” payroll (Ghosts as well as the quick).
CLOGSAG’s beef was to replicate the same refrain that has led other people paid from the public purse to down their pens, chalk and stethoscopes; namely the failure of the government to pay ‘the market premium’ allowances elements of the Single Spine Salary Scheme.
Please note that the strikes are no longer about the payment of the basic Quadruple S, which is being enjoyed, but the clawing back of the allowances that determine the relative importance on the employment ladder.
The government has admitted that after paying the QS to the workers, Ghana’s public purse is emptied out completely and absolutely; there is simply no ‘kudi’ left to do the things that will improve our lives and for which we are doling out all our money to those on the public payroll.
The money collected to make the NHIS beneficial has been filched to pay wages. The capitation fees nourishing our children under the School Feeding Programme have gone into public sector wages.
Our much-touted decentralisation has stopped in its tracks because the portion of the public purse that should go to the MMDAs has not left Accra for several months ‘cos it has all gone into paying wages. Talk tax is not putting our money where our mouths are chatting “yabe yabe” ‘cos that money too has gone into the public wage bill.
Paying workers well is very good and commendable. But then there is always the other side of the equation, namely “What are you paying them for?” Unfortunately, in Ghana we seem to be concerned only with the answer part of the equation, namely the pay, and forget that it is only when we do the analytic work on the left side well and diligently that we arrive at the correct answer. We simply cannot address good pay without productivity.
The QS input of good pay must yield the output of high productivity that funds the high wage bill. If we are spending GH¢11 billion in paying public workers better, we are entitled to ask, may demand, insist, and ultimately ensure that the work being done is deserving of the better pay.
Instead, we have put ourselves in the untenable position of not being able to measure workers’ output at all, because all the money has been spent on wages and there is nothing left to do the work, let alone determine the worth of it.
The Government of President John Mahama needs to stop playing “afraid men and women” when it comes to tackling and solving the equation of Public Sector Pay & Productivity (the other triangular Ps whose neglect stops the achievement of the more sexy Public, Private Partnership).
After all, they are also “chopping plenty” from GH¢11 billion and must stop fiddling with pre-paid metres when they should be getting on with ensuring that we are getting real and quantifiable value and benefits from “blowing our cash” on the implementers of GYEEDA and those who ‘investigate their misdeeds’
There is no merit in crying that the QS should never have been implemented. The fact is that the QS genie is out of the bottle and it is a good thing to be proud that we can pay better to attract better quality and more competent folks into the service of our nation.
For nearly five years now, President Mahama has been part of Power in this country. He has made several speeches and pronouncements in that time. Yet, I cannot recall a single major speech that has taken on the issue of making our public sector more productive (including Article 71 folks) and delivering measurable outputs that show that the investment of the people’s taxes in SSSS is yielding tangible improvements in our overall welfare and well-being.
Instead of moaning about mounting wage bills, let the government start looking at precisely and exactly what each single person who is paid from the public purse is delivering to earn their pay.
We will soon find out that we can have our cake and eat it by having to pay fewer people to achieve the same or better output than now. Trimming a bloated public service has been one of the sacred mantras of public sector reforms in the 25 years I have been around. Doing it has always eluded us like the scarlet pimpernel, even when PAMSCAD was introduced as a sweetener.
How many of us remember the standard joke about public sector pay, namely” “Government pretends it is paying us and we pretend we are working?” It used to be quite funny and a readymade excuse for doing nothing.
Now that QS has done away with the Government’s response, the workers are still pretending to be working. That, I am afraid, is a sick joke that must be wiped off our increasingly suffering faces.
Let the example of the Black Stars be manifested in the output delivered by those now enjoying QS. For now, I am afraid in the match between public pay and commensurate productive output, the score for now is: Single spine 6, Ghana 1.
QS has increased public pay several folds while productivity has stood still. But it is possible to square the match and get productivity to score more goals and even achieve victory for a wealthier Ghana on the away-goal rule. How this can be done, will have to wait another week.
The writer is Chief Policy Analyst , Ghana Institute for Public Policy Options(GIPPO)
Writer’s email: [email protected]