Single Spine was poorly implemented - Prof. Bokpin

Prof. Godfred Alufar Bokpin, Head of Finance Department at the University of Ghana Business School, has asserted that the Single Spine policy was poorly implemented.

Implemented in 2010 under the late President, Prof. John Evans Attah Mills-led government, the policy was geared towards ensuring fair wages and salaries and improvement in the standard of living among workers in the public service of Ghana as spelled out in Article 190 of the 1992 constitution.

But speaking on Joy News TV’s AM Show, Tuesday, Prof. Bokpin said the policy was poorly executed because “as a lower middle-income country, it didn’t necessarily mean cash flow generation capacity was enhanced” and the move resulted in a huge wage bill.

Prof. Bokpin said a system of recalibration was used to determine the state of the country’s coffers “and that didn’t mean we had the money.”

“We used a different calculator and suddenly, we are rich,” he said.

Also, he stated that the recalibration did not suggest the government had the cash generation capacity to absorb the expenditure drive that it was pushing through.

He asserted that the government of the time did not explore productivity factors so it increased wages and salaries but productivity remained poor.

“Unfortunately we are struggling as a country [about] how to measure productivity,” he said.

The professor believes tax revenue is another problem facing the country at the moment because as “a middle-income country with high expenditure, our tax effort should be at least 25% but unfortunately, the states get less than 17% of its revenue from tax.”

“This forces the government to borrow or to partner with the private sector which the NPP government is championing”, he said.