The Employment and Labour Relations Minister, Mr Ignatius Baffour-Awuah, has announced a seven per cent pay rise for public sector workers for the year 2022.

He said the earlier four per cent increase has been superseded by the current raise.

The minister was speaking at the 6th Quadrennial National Delegates Conference and the 90th-anniversary of the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) held in Kumasi today, Tuesday, 4 January 2022.

Mr Baffour-Awuah told the teachers that the four per cent increase was due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the economy.

He said: “Yes, we endured a difficult time during the period of covid but Mr President insisted that under no condition should any Ghanaian worker lose his job during the period of covid. Through that, we were able to safeguard the work of every public sector worker in Ghana including teachers, for which members of GNAT are included. So, we want to express our appreciation to you.”

He noted that in return, “Mr President, we had to also negotiate with the leadership of organised labour and in the process, we also agreed that we had to be modest in our request on the national kitty; that is how we ended at the four per cent.”

“But Mr President, the beautiful thing is that we are moving on and we have agreed that coming into this current year, the four per cent will no longer exist and that we are going to give workers a seven per cent increase,” he added.

The employment and labour relations minister expressed hope and belief that things will begin to work better for the economy “so that we can give our workforce a better remuneration that they can actually be proud of.”

Touching on pensions, he applauded the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) for having what he described as one of the best pension schemes in the country.

“I’ll say that on issues of pensions, currently as we speak, GNAT has one of the best occupational pension schemes operating in the country now and I’ll like to thank them for the pioneering role they’ve played together with their other colleague organised labour, in helping us to shape the pension front and, especially giving us one of the best pension schemes, the three-tier pension scheme, which currently is serving the interest of our pensioners,” Mr Baffour-Awuah said.