How absurd!
The Akufo-Addo government is plagued by a myriad of problems. The impact of COVID-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war continue to evolve.
In addition, some of the President’s appointees seem not to be working for him, neither are they working for Ghana; rather themselves.
Some of these appointees of the President have assumed they are the smartest in the world to the point where they are now outsmarting themselves.
This is the only way I can explain why appointees at the Labour Ministry can sign an MOU with the Civil and Local Government Staff Association, Ghana (CLOGSAG) to compensate them for their inability to do partisan politics and still insist the name of the allowance has not been firmed up.
Wow! You agree to pay 20 percent allowance to workers, sign an MOU for that agreement before you go look for a name for that allowance? It is the most “un-smartest” thing to do.
The Civil Service is a creature of law. The law says those that enter the service cannot do partisan politics. People knowing the rule/law agreed to become civil servants. It is thus absurd for the same people to demand a change of the rules when they have already entered the game.
But unfortunately, for Ghana, the Ministry for Labour says they agree that the rules be changed and that the workers barred from partisan politics will receive an allowance to enable them to continue to stay neutral.
But as the TUC man explained on joy’s newsfile programme over the weekend, the public sector has some 40 or so institutions and agencies whose workers are similarly barred from partisan politics. In the spirit of fairness and to avoid disturbing the industrial relations scene further, the smartest thing for our smart Ministers to do is to extend the neutrality allowance to workers of those institutions. The police, immigration and fire service men and women cannot do partisan politics either; they cannot also form or join a union. They will receive “political neutrality allowance” and “union neutrality allowance”. They also have to consider our revered chiefs and other palace staff!
When the name of the allowance is firmed up – political neutrality allowance or otherwise – the workers now know that the allowance is to “reinforce” the commitment of the affected workers to be neutral to paraphrase the Deputy Employment Minister. You can call it “smartest allowance”, staff of the Electoral Commission will have to benefit as a way of “government helping them to stay neutral”. After all neutrality is much more important at the EC than in some of the Ministries!
Meanwhile, government is facing all sort of fiscal challenges and appealing to the rest of public sector workers and Ghanaians to moderate their demands and expectations. The government that recently held a national labour conference and agreed to address labour issues holistically, avoid enclave solutions and about to commence a review of its major pay policy, an exercise that is intended to solve the rampaging pay inequities in the public sector.
Our Ministers must realise that being able to speak fine English isn’t the same as being knowledgeable in every field. They must listen and they must learn. They must consult. And they must realise that the day of reckoning is neigh. Opposition is hell and for this party it can be long and arduous if it happens!!!
