POTAG KICKS AGAINST SINGLE SPINE PAY POLICY (JUNE 9, 2010)

Story: Nana Konadu Agyeman, Koforidua.



THE Polytechnic Teachers Association of Ghana (POTAG) has kicked against attempts to shift the payment of salaries of its members to the Controller and Accountant-General’s Department pay system.
It said it would not be in the interest of its members if their salaries were offloaded unto the pay system of the CACD, which it said was “already engulfed with several problems and inconsistencies that it is unable to solve”.
In a press statement at Koforidua yesterday (7/06), the National President of POTAG, Mr G. K. Abledu, however stated that “POTAG, having a representation on the Public Service Joint Negotiating Committee, does not in any way oppose government’s efforts to adopt and equal work equal pay salary structure through the implementation of the single spine pay policy”.
The National President of POTAG said even before the start of implementation of the Integrated Personal Payroll Database 2 (I.P.P.D. 2)”, polytechnics had been beset with difficulties in the payment of staff salaries.
According to him, simple documents submitted by the polytechnics to the CAGD had often been obliterated “as we have not been properly linked to the I.P.P.D 2”.
“Documents have to be prepared manually by the polytechnics before they are processed at the CAGD and already there are signs of inaccuracy and ineptitude”, he emphasized.
Buttressing the position of POTAG, he said Wa Polytechnic, for example, presented both a hard and soft copy of their staff list for processing to the CAGD but a number of staff had their names deleted while unknown names were rather included.
“The situation was not different at Tamale Polytechnic, where the Accountant himself who prepared the staff list and submitted it to the CAGD had his name off the list published for verification, while staff had their salaries slashed by half or more”, Mr Abledu stated, adding that “the payroll problems encountered by bodies on the IPPD as far back as 2004 had remained unresolved”.
Citing the saga surrounding the ex-gratia of Members of Parliament, which was released by the Office of the President but was in excess and therefore MPs were asked to refund the money, he said “these are some of the problems POTAG envisages that the polytechnics could be confronted with, which must not be allowed to start in the first place”.
In his view, since staff at the Polytechnics had to go in for bank and credit union loans as well as mutual and provident funds to supplement their meager salaries, the slightest delay in paying such loans at agreed period attracted an imposition of a penal interest.
“We cannot guarantee the regular payment of such deduction of our salaries to the various banks as the CAGD will not be able to make prompt payments of our salaries to the various bodies and this could lead to avoidable legal suits against individuals and the polytechnics”, Mr Abledu explained.
He added: “In the end, it is the staff who will suffer as they will be denied access to loans and other forms of credits and this will also not allow others to enjoy these facilities through no fault of theirs”.
The president also expressed worry over the government’s inability to renew the conditions of service for both POTAG and Teachers and Education Workers Union (TEWU), which expired in 2008.
According to him, efforts to get POTAG Standing Joint Negotiating Committee (SJNC) to reconvene to negotiate the conditions of service with the government had proved futile, adding that the “government always gives untenable excuses as to why negotiations cannot be held”.
“It must be reiterated that the patience of unionized bodies in the polytechnics has been overstretched and so we demand that the SJNC should be reconvened soonest to include conditions of service for both POTAG and TEWU, while effort made to get one for PAAG”, Mr Abledu stated.