‘No more wholesale market premium’
Market premium to be implemented from January 2014 will not be a substitute for any other allowance previously being received by workers, the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission (FWSC) has said.
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According to the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the FWSC, Mr George Smith-Graham, in its White Paper issued in April 2013, the government defined market premium as "an absolute amount paid only to employees with critical skills in short supply" .
The CEO, therefore, said by virtue of the definition, the market premium to be implemented could not be taken as a substitute for additional hours worked as some workers were asserting.
The Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, Mr Seth Terkper, announced during the presentation of the budget on Tuesday, November 19, 2013 that the government was going to implement the market premium from January 2014.
Various concerns have been raised by labour unions, including the Ghana Medical Association (GMA), whose members want negotiations to begin on their additional duty hour allowance (ADHA) before the implementation, since the interim market premium they enjoyed was a sort of substitute for that allowance. But Mr Smith-Graham told the Daily Graphic that the market premium would not be a substitute for extra hours put in by workers.
He, however, conceded that the market survey to be undertaken in determining the market premium could have elements of some category of workers putting in more hours because their skills were in short supply.
He said clear guidelines now covered extra hours put in by workers, which had to be determined by heads of departments or agencies.
Mr Smith-Graham said sensitisation to the market premium would be done concurrently with the survey which would be undertaken by the Ghana Statistical Service, to ensure its effectiveness at the time of implementation.
Meanwhile, the Vice President of the University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG), Mr Alexander Dakubo Kakraba, said the professional allowance of university lecturers was what was synonymously termed the interim market premium.
He said UTAG had requested a meeting with the FWSC to discuss the way forward, but the commission was dragging its feet on the matter.
He said it would be a mistake on the part of government to abolish the professional allowance of lecturers under the new era of market premium, as it would distort the salaries of university lecturers on the Single Spine Salary Structure (SSSS), hence there was the need to discuss the issue.