Timelines for 2025 Salary Negotiations Disclosed
Ghanaian formal sector workers await 2025 salary negotiations in earnest. This is mostly due to the economic hardships in the country, especially the cost of goods and service. Many even dare to say the national inflation rate does not even reflect the actual rate of price increases in the country.
History of salary negotiations
Before the onset of the Single Spine Salary Structure in the country, annual salary negotiations used to occur in the implementation year. Those were the days when the government had to pay salary arrears beginning in January because the negotiations were done in the year of implementation.
However, with the implementation of the Single Spine Salary Structure coupled with new legislation inspired by the IMF (International Monetary Fund), salary negotiations were mostly concluded in the proceeding years and factored into the annual budget.
Uncharacteristically, salary negotiations for the year 2021 were done in the implementation year. Similarly, salary negotiations for the year 2023 were concluded after the budget for the year was read months earlier.
Status for the 2025 salary increment negotiations
Negotiations for the 2025 salary are yet to start. The clearest information about the status of the negotiations was disclosed by some union leaders months ago. The union leaders claim they wish not to negotiate with the outgoing NPP government.
They cited scenarios where the incoming government would resist implementation of the full agreement negotiated by the outgoing government.
What next
The negotiations for the 2025 salary increments are scheduled to commence in earnest.
The government of the day needs to conclude the negotiations as early as possible in their own interest. We have therefore provided factors that will affect the timelines for the negotiations.
2025 salary negotiations
Firstly, the government needs to appoint key negotiators to lead the negotiations. These key negotiators are mostly ministers in charge of finance and employment.
Unfortunately, such appointed ministers must be vetted and approved before they can have the mandate to negotiate.
We, therefore, expect the appointment and parliamentary approval of these two ministers before the end of January.
Secondly, the government will have to decide whether they will maintain other key government negotiators at the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission.
A decision to replace such public servants before the start of the negotiations could delay the negotiations up to the middle of February.
A third factor that would determine the start and end of the negotiations is the presentation of the main budget for the year.
The mini-budget that was presented earlier takes care of government revenue and expenditure from January to March.
A main budget is therefore needed to cover the rest of the year and even remediate any shortfalls in the mini-budget.
Renumeration is the second-largest expenditure on the budget after interest payment commitment by the government. It is therefore very necessary to have a fair idea about the actual level of the second-largest expenditure (renumeration) before a budget is presented in the middle of March.
It is for this reason we believe the 2025 salary negotiations will conclude by the middle of March before the main budget is presented.
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Conclusion
The 2025 salary negotiations will likely start early to the middle part of February and will most likely conclude by the middle of March.
Caveat: Despite our strong belief about the timelines of the start and conclusion of the negotiations, it is possible the conclusion would not conclude before the presentation of the main budget. This could be due to labor’s inability to accept whatever proposal the government brings on board.
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