Ghanaians deserve decent wages – Finance Minister

Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta has said Ghanaian workers deserve decent wages to ensure an improved standing of living.

He said this during the presentation of the 2019 Mid-Year Budget Review to the country’s Parliament here in Accra on Monday.

“We all deserve decent wages and we must work to pay decent wages. We can and must protect wages,” Ofori-Atta said.

The Akufo-Addo led government, according to the Finance Minister has cordial relationship with organized labour and will continue to maintain that.

The Finance Minister assured the government is working assiduously to protect macro-economic stability in order not to throw away the gains achieved so far out of gear.

The country’s Trades Union Congress (TUC) has on many occasions called on governments to pay workers ‘realistic’ living wages.

Dr. Kwabena Nyarko Otoo, Director of Labour Research and Policy Institute for the TUC, recently recommended the payment of living wages to workers, saying the minimum wage does not consider the needs of their family members and dependents.

“A living wage will do a better job of lifting not only the worker but also his/her family out of poverty, he stated. “A worker whose earnings allow him/her to cater for the family will in all probability be more productive than otherwise.”

In line with section 113 (1) (a) of the Labour Act, 2003, (Act 651), the National Tripartite Committee (NTC) increased the 2019 National Daily Minimum Wage by 10 percent from 9 Ghana cedis, 68 pesewas to 10 Ghana cedis, 65 pesewas.

Already, the NTC, made up of government, employers and organized labour have been holding meetings to fix the NDMW for year 2020.

With the statement by the Finance Minister during the presentation of the Mid-Year Budget Review, Ghanaian workers are highly expectant of improved conditions regarding the announcement of the next minimum wage by the National Tripartite Committee.