Accra July 11, GNA – A Zimbabwean delegation is in Ghana to understudy the country’s pay administration system to enable it to design its own payroll architecture to address public remuneration challenges.
Consequently, the delegation led by Mr Kufa E. Chinoza, the Ambassador of Zimbabwe to Ghana, and Professor Carroll T. Khombe, the Commissioner of Zimbabwe’s Public Services Commission, paid a working visit to the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission (FWSC) in Accra on Monday.
A separate delegation visited the FWSC in 2021 on a similar mission.
The purpose of the visit is to learn about the implementation of Ghana’s Single Spine Salary Structure (SSSS) with the aim of replicating the same in Zimbabwe following persistent agitations over salary disparities in that country.
The SSSS was formulated to reinstate equity and transparency in public service pay administration.
The delegation earlier on Monday visited the Public Services Commission in Accra as part of its mission.
At the FWSC, the team was received by Mr Benjamin Arthur, the Chief Executive of the FWSC, who expressed the readiness of the Commission to continuously share ideas with Zimbabwe to support the establishment of a robust payroll system.
He said Ghana had attained considerable experience in the implementation of the SSSS and had put measures in place to review the system after more than a decade of its implementation.
Mr Arthur urged the delegation to ensure that it engaged all stakeholders at every step of the development process.
That would ensure that the system that would be developed was acceptable to all parties to achieve industrial harmony.
Prof. Khombe said Zimbabwe’s efforts to set up a payroll system like the SSSS would have been incomplete if they had not visited the FWSC.
He said the country in recent years had been challenged with labour unrest as workers were demanding that their remuneration was tied against the Dollar rate.
“We want to learn from the spine salary system. We do not want to wait for the crisis. We want a system that continuously works and makes us proactive,” Prof. Khombe said.
The Government of Ghana established the Fairwages and Salaries Commission by an Act of Parliament in 2007.
The policy was implemented in 2010 to regulate public service workers’ pay, especially those under Article 190 of the 1992 Constitution.
In a presentation, Mr Earl Ankrah, the Director for Research, Monitoring and Evaluation and Head of Public Affairs, FWSC, said the objective for the development of the SSSS was to among others promote equity in the administration of public service pay.
He said the FWSC had thus far ensured a reduction in salary disparities and distortions and the achievement of “Equal pay for Equal work” in tandem with Article 24(1) of the 1992 Constitution.
GNA