Thomas Tanko Musah is the General Secretary of GNAT
• The CAGD has threatened not to pay government workers without a Ghana Card from December
• GNAT says this is unacceptable since they don’t employ themselves
• GNAT wants the CAGD to review the directive or expect an appropriate response from them
The Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) has stated that it will not be cowed into accepting the draconian directive by the Controller and Accountants General Department, threatening to hold back salaries of government workers without the Ghana card by December 1.
According to its General Secretary, Thomas Tanko Musah, it is unacceptable for CAGD to make such threats and give such a directive without consulting their employers, especially when they are not unilaterally employed.
Speaking with GhanaWeb over a Zoom call, Tanko Musah stressed the importance of having deliberations on things like this before such major decisions are taken on them.
“It must be placed on record that the workers here are the Article 190 workers – the people in the public service. Normally, in dealing with public service matters like this, we have what we call the tripartite body or social partners that come together to deal with matters like this.
“If you look at what is happening now, the workers are not on their own. The workers do not place themselves on the payroll. Somebody will have to employ the worker; somebody will have to place employee’s name on the payroll among other things. And that employee is working under someone and will take permission for whatever it wants to do,” he said.
He continued that there is a better way for the Accountant General’s Department to go about this if it expects success, not the strategy it has adopted.
“So, if Controller wants this thing to be successful, it should have written to the various employers under Article 190 and all these employers to say this is the exercise we are carrying out and so kindly mobilize your people, facilitate how best you can assist us get the National Identification Authority so you can have all the workers you have on our payroll registered.
“Controller and Accountant General should have engaged the employers who are under Article 190. When that is done, the next body to be engaged is the National Identification Authority because the National Identification Authority should be able to give a clear indication of their ability and capability they have regarding the resources made available to them, and that they will be able to ensure and carry out the exercise by the ending of November,” he said.
Thomas Tanko Musah stressed how unacceptable all of this sounds and stated that they will not fail to respond if the CAGD does not review its tactics.
“As we speak now, the Controller and Accountant General’s Department has left out the employers, has left out the National Identification Authority and went to the extent of threatening workers…we want them to know that is unacceptable.
“And should they ignore our concerns and our procedures, then it will certainly receive appropriate response from us,” he stated.
Watch the full video below: