The Single Spine was Our Savior …SETH TERKPER

SETH TERKPER

Story by Addotey Michael

(BLG NEWS)

The Minister of Finance, Seth Terkper, during the maiden edition of the Graphic Buisness/Stanbic breakfast meeting to address the budget deficit issues in Ghana, at the Labadi Beach Hotel, reposed that, the Single Spine Salary Structure (SSSS) was an unsurpassed policy that saved Ghana from its wages and salaries woes.

He made this known during his presentation at the meeting, to address and educate the business community on issues about the budget deficit challenges in Ghana. He revealed during the meeting that, the government has been able to achieve a 0% Bank of Ghana (BoG) financing, by not relying on BoG to finance the various departmental expenditures which is very historical in Ghana.

    As part of the roots of the budget overruns, he explained that, the country’s commodity prices had an unexpected shot during the year through imported inflations, as crude oil prices fell resulting in the budget overruns. He revealed that, as a measure to curb the budget overruns, the finance ministry presented a bill to parliament to reduce the budget line which minimized the overruns.

Explaining the reasons for the ignominy of the Ghana Universal Salary Structure, he posited that, the structure was very difficult to be rationalized, creating a lot of salary dissatisfaction among government workers. He continued by adding that, the SSSS was a timely intervention which transformed the country’s payroll system, even though the country had to pay 3 billion cedis in arrears during its introductory phase.   

He revealed that, as part of the effect of the budget deficit, public debts increases without an accompanying increment in productivity in the country. Responding from a question from a participant, he said banks, contractors and suppliers should carry out an effective due diligence before releasing out loans by accessing the budgets of loan recipients effectively, which otherwise causes budget deficit issues in the country.

   He said in his presentation that, the finance ministry was able to raise 300million from the oil revenue to support the budget deficit in the country, which was very unprecedented in the financial history of Ghana. Explicating the measures adopted to reduce the ‘ghost names’ payroll problems, he explained that, the finance ministry has adopted an electronic system which sends list of names of teachers on payroll to head teachers for verifications before salaries are paid, as this has abated the “ghost names” problems in Ghana. “We now have confidence in our salary and payroll structure due to the single spine structure and the electronic system put in place”, he confidently supplemented.