Expert wants the government of Ghana to set the minimum wage for employees above $100 per month

According to her, the current minimum wage of GH¢288 per month is a ‘very small amount’, and has the potential to prevent many employers from paying workers their Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) pension contributions.

Mrs Addison who is also the Country Director of MainSpring Resourcing said this while speaking to the Business and Financial Times.

She said the current minimum wage, which requires that no employer should pay an employee below GH¢288 every month, is ‘nothing to write home about.’

Some employers who use the minimum as a yardstick and pay their workers with that amount (GH¢288), she said, might not be able to deduct SSNIT because doing so will mean that they are paying the employee below the minimum wage.

“The minimum wage is GH¢288 for the month. This means that anybody who earns GH¢288 might not get the opportunity to pay SSNIT contribution because the employer might be paying you below the minimum wage if he takes the SSNIT deductions from it,” she said, adding that, "So you can work for months and receive no SSNIT deduction. I think that if you are not earning up to $100 or GH¢500 then I don’t think you can survive,” she said.

This, she said, would let the employees whose salaries are benchmarked with the minimum wage left with a significant amount of salary after SSNIT deductions.