Professor Aaron Mike Oquaye, a former Speaker of Parliament, has lamented the lack of living wage legislation in the country, particularly for paid people.
He believes that the government's campaign against corruption will be tough because most workers cannot exist on their present 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 government.
"The e-governance program, which should embrace the computerization of all administrative components, should be carried to a logical end." Because tariffs are partly cloaked in metaphor, customs and fraud exist. When Dr. Busia delivered passport applications to post offices to be auctioned, the attendants were not happy.
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 survive 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 research conducted by the African Public Policy Institute in 2014, which was directed by this writer, 90 percent of respondents confidently said that no one in Ghana survives on his or her wage. Prof. Oquaye continued, "This is an ostrich strategy that can never address any problem."
"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 processes, 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.