'Single Spine should have been based on performance contracts'

A Minister of State at the Presidency in charge of Public Sector Reform, Alhassan Azong, says the introduction of the Single Spine Pay Policy (SSSS) has failed to reflect positively on the level of productivity because all the key issues were not considered before the implementation started.

He says the level of remuneration should have been matched against results and not qualification as has been the case. That he said would have ensured that public sector workers are paid their real worth like in the private sector.

Mr. Azong was speaking in an interview with Myjoyonline.com.

"I think that what the Single Spine Pay Policy should have done was to do the pay vrs productivity indices and be able to say that if you are taking this amount of salary, then this is the productivity that is expected of you," he stated.

But this, according to him, did not happen.

He said there ought to also have been a system of performance contracts for supervisors to ensure that they demand tangible results from their subordinates.

The failure to predicate the implementation of the pay policy, he said, had lead to a situation where government was putting in substantial resources in remuneration for public sector workers and yet there was not corresponding increase in productivity and the quality of public services.

He said the new pay policy was taking some much money from government coffers "that there is nothing left for services. I mean we cannot be serious as a nation; that all your money goes into paying workers and what is supposed to expand the economy in terms of services comes to a standstill."

Mr. Azong, who is also the Peoples National Convention (PNC) Member of Parliament for Builsa South Constituency in the Upper East Region, said the economy cannot expand in real terms and create jobs if public sector workers continue with the old habits of going to work late and closing early while receiving handsome remuneration.

In view of this, he said the Public Sector Reform Secretariat had made proposals for matching productivity with salaries which will be incorporated in next year's budget.

He is convinced that if adopted and implemented, the proposal will change the current situation for the better.