In a joint statement, the Ghanaian government and trade unions announced their agreement to raise all public employees’ salaries by 30% starting in 2023 as the nation works to cut its debt and control skyrocketing inflation.
A few months after hardship sparked street demonstrations that forced the government to request assistance from the International Monetary Fund, trade unions representing public service workers began negotiating salary increases with the administration in November.
The two parties reached an agreement on a 30 percent basic wage raise that would take effect on January 1, 2023.
The local cedi suffered a significant decline in value against the US dollar last year as government spending cuts and interest rate increases by the central bank failed to control inflation, which reached a new high of 54% last month.
To eliminate the deficit, control inflation, and stop the depreciation of the cedi, Ghana’s government announced significant spending reductions in March, including a reduction in ministers’ salaries.
However, it also hiked the cost of living allowance for government employees by 15% in July, emphasising how “global difficulties” were affecting citizens.
In December, Ghana and the IMF reached a staff-level agreement on a $3 billion, three-year support package. But in order to get the money, it must restructure its debt.
The government said last month that it would fail on almost all of its $28.4 billion in external loans and that it had started a domestic debt swap program.
This week, it submitted a request to restructure its bilateral debt under the G20 common framework platform.