Most Workers Do Not Use Their Salaries – Prof. Mike Oquaye

Professor Aaron Mike Oquaye, a former Speaker of Parliament, has lamented the lack of living wage legislation in the country, particularly for salaried people.

He believes that the government’s campaign against corruption will be tough because most workers cannot exist on their current wages.

Prof. Mike Oquaye, speaking at the Institute of Economic Affairs’ opening of the Professor Mike Oquaye Centre for Constitutional Studies, urged for improved programs to ensure the computerization of all parts of administration.

“The e-governance program, which should embrace the computerization of all administrative components, should be carried to a logical end.” Because duties are partly cloaked in allegory, customs and fraud exist. When Dr. Busia submitted passport forms to post offices to be sold, the associated corruption with passport forms came to an end.

“For all public tasks, time frames should be established, and consequences for non-compliance should be imposed.” When public obligations cannot be completed timely through well-established procedures, the public servant uses the approach of go-come, go-come, come tomorrow, come tomorrow, till money changes hands,” he added.

He also urged for the implementation of living wage regulations in order to reduce corruption in the country.

“Steal sanctions and punishments should be enacted to address the offenses that we are all too familiar with. Living wage policies should be pushed, and it’s really amusing to talk about corruption in a country where the majority of employees do not live on their income. ‘So, what do you live on?’ ask all officials in the ministries and elsewhere. Nobody knows what he eats or where he lives.

“According to a study conducted by the African Public Policy Institute in 2014, which was led by this writer, 90 percent of respondents confidently said that no one in Ghana survives on his or her pay. Prof. Oquaye continued, “This is an ostrich strategy that can never address any problem.”