If you want better pay get into the private sector - Yamin

Deputy Minister for Youth and Sports, Joseph Yamin, has charged that it is time for government to also give workers a piece of its mind after years of labour agitations for better pay.

The deputy minister is advising disgruntled public workers that "if you want better pay get into the private sector", and that is calling a spade, a spade, the young deputy minister noted on Adom TV's Badwam Tuesday.


He was backing controversial comments made by National Security Advisor Brigadier General (Rtd) Nunoo-Mensah who asserted that public workers should not be paid while on strike. Nunoo Mensah said workers have the option of leaving the country if the "kitchen is to hot" to handle.


Although his comments have been condemned, the former Chief of Defence Staff has refused to apologise.


That is a mark of a soldier, Yamin noted saying "as a military man you stand by your words".


He said despite the complaint by salaried workers over pay, they often temper with their retirement age and request for additional contracts just to keep earning the salary they are dissatisfied with.

"Do you know the number of people out there taking less salary", he queried and advised disgruntled workers to "get out" and let someone else come in.


He said Nunoo-Mensah's comments were not the first of its kind, recalling a statement allegedly made by an NPP communicator Kwesi Kyei during the erstwhile Kufuor administration when he publicly stated that dissatisfied Ghanaians could leave the country for Liberia.


Further to this, Joseph Yamin explained that the recent increase in utility tariffs by 78% for power and 52% for water is not the worse.


"Is it bigger than what the NPP increased in 2001?" He contrasted.


He said in some ministries a simple request for a letter could take days and yet the Trades Union Congress was not showing concern for a lack of productivity in the various ministries.

The TUC is always seen only when workers have concerns about remunerations, he noted, but are nowhere to be found when it comes to encouraging public sector workers to "stop reading newspapers" and actually work.


Whatever the case, Joseph Yamin believes strike affects ordinary Ghanaians looking up to public service but not a minister like him.


He revealed he has not been paid as a deputy minister, but that was not interfering with his work because he knows he would be eventually paid even if it took 100 years.


Picking up on a recent strike by 400 nurses over unpaid salaries for 21 months, Joseph Yamin rationalised that it was not the first time such an occurrence is happening in the country.


He also lambasted doctors for proceeding on a strike without any care for dying patients and wondered what will be the fate of this country if immigration, police and the army withdraw their services over remunerations.