Thursday, September 16, 2010

PRISON OFFICERS IN DEMONSTRATION (1B)






Prison officers in Kumasi and Sekondi yesterday demonstrated against what they described as “inadequate upward adjustment in their salaries,” as a result of the implementation of the Single Spine Salary Structure (SSSS).
They said in comparison with what their counterparts in the Ghana Police Service received when the SSSS was implemented for its personnel in July, this year, their salaries were far below their expectations.
Wearing red armbands, the officers abandoned their duty posts, locked the main gates of the central prisons in the two cities, blocked all entry points, vowed to prevent visitors from visiting their relatives and also vowed not to admit new prisoners or suspects on remand.
But at a press conference to react to the demonstration, the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission (FWSC) said the demonstration was without merit, Caroline Boateng reports.
The press conference was addressed by a Deputy Minister of Information, Mr James Agyenim-Boateng, and the Chief Executive of the FWSC, Mr George Smith-Graham.
Mr Graham said the demonstration was without merit. He explained that the earnings of officers of the Ghana Prison Service could be less than those of personnel of the Ghana Police Service due to some allowances the police enjoyed that the prisons did not.
He, therefore, asked the officers to stop demonstrating and rather prepare to negotiate on allowances when the FWSC invited them for that.
He emphasised that pay levels of officers of the Ghana Prison Service was based on a job evaluation that they did not contest.
Mr Graham further stated that the initial use of the SSSS in July for the payment of salaries for the Ghana Police Service was done without the payment of any allowances except for allowances relating to the knowledge and skills required for the performance of a particular job.
Referring to that as category one allowances, he said they were consolidated for all workers, including the Ghana Prison Service.
For allowances referred to as category two and three, which related to the levels of responsibility that a person exerted in the exercise of his job and the work environment, the agreement was for these to be harmonised and standardised.
Mr Graham explained that the standardisation and harmonisation of such allowances was underway currently and the completion of the exercise would result in all organisations in one service category negotiating for the same levels of allowances pertaining to their organisations.
He said the Ghana Prison Service, the Ghana Immigration Service (GIS) and the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) were the institutions that were put on the SSSS this month in spite of the late submission of information on the mapping from old salary structures onto the new SSSS.
In spite of the delay, the Controller and Accountant General’s Department (CAGD) managed to pay the salaries with the late submission.

Mr Graham said when the first printout of the mapping was done by the CAGD, the top management of the GIS convened a meeting with the FWSC to discuss it, and that explained why officers there were not agitating.

He also explained that the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) was not part f the SSSS, and would not be part of it, but had gone through the job evaluation exercise, and in keeping with their terms in deciding their conditions of service, the FWSC was in discussion with them on that.
From Kumasi, Enoch Darfah Frimpong & Robert Kyei-Gyau report that demonstrators burnt tyres on the asphalt road in front of the Prison Service to register their protest.
The officers accused the FWSC and the government of unfair treatment in the implementation of the SSSS.
The demonstrators claimed prison officers had fared worse compared to the Police Service and the Armed Forces under the SSSS, but the leadership of the Prisons Service had failed to act in their favour.
The demonstrating officers refused all attempts by their leadership to address them and refused to call off the demonstration unless the Ashanti Regional Minister, Mr Kofi Opoku Manu, came personally to assure them of finding a solution to their complaints.
They called for parity in wages with their counterparts in the Police Service and the Army, institutions they said had fared better with the SSSS.
Moses Dotse Akrobotu reports from Sekondi that at about 10 a.m. convicts transported from other parts of the region to the prison were turned away.
Prison officers there also set lorry tyres ablaze, blocking the road leading to the female prisons, preventing all vehicles from entering the precincts.
The demonstrators were later joined by their wives with cooking utensil, plastic bowls and gallons, all of which they used as drums.
“Our accommodation is not the best.
We have been forgotten and our children who have joined the police service recently are taking more salary than us,” some of the demonstrators said.
Asked if they knew they were a regimental institution and were not supposed to embark on a demonstration, they said they were aware but had been pushed to the wall.
Attempts by some senior officers to enter the yard were met by demonstrators chanting “no way!, no way!”

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