Govt can’t match productivity with pay of public sector workers – Gamey

Labour Consultant, Austin Gamey says he’s the highly sceptical government can institute its proposed appraisal of all workers of organizations in the Single Spine Programme to assess the performance of workers before salaries are released this year.

The Fair Wages Commission gave the hint after government reached an agreement with labour for a 30% increase in base pay of public sector workers for 2023.

But speaking to Starr News, Austin Gamey, former Deputy Minister for Employment and Labour Relations said he believes the government does not have the right mechanism to carry out this mandate.

“I’m not too sure they can be able to do it, let me be very frontal that way. They are not ready for it, and saying it and not doing it creates more problems. So the Minister for Employment and Labour Relations shouldn’t have said it. All they have to do is to work at it. I appreciate the dynamics of it because the law enjoins us to do as a nation and as people who occupy these offices. If they do it, I will clap for them from here to my hometown, but I wonder if they can do it, particularly 2023.

“There’s nothing, there’s no structure in place for them to do it. So to talk about matching productivity with pay, they don’t have the structure in place. They have not trained anybody. All the Head of Departments know very little about it, and how are they going to do it. It is doable if you are ready for it. I can tell you I believe in it and I have been speaking about it for many years. Even private companies they cannot even do it, how much more government.”