Former UN Senior Governance Advisor and Co-founder of CDD-Ghana, Professor Baffour Agyeman Duah, has described the neutrality allowance being demanded by CLOSAG as the most ridiculous demand he’s ever heard.

According to Dr. Agyeman Duah, every job has its code of conduct or ethics as such, if a worker signs up for a job, the worker must not turn around and demand something that the code of ethics has clearly laid out.

“Look, this is the most ridiculous proposal I have ever heard in the arena of governance. If it were to be that the civil servants are asking for allowance just because they are made to be neutral in politics, it will be the most ridiculous demand I have ever heard.”
Professor Baffour Agyeman Duah

Professor Agyeman Duah attributed the current unrest in the civil service to the poor salaries of the workers. He added that there is a fundamental problem which is the low salaries generally that prevail in the country.

The former Governance Advisor intimated that the action by CLOSAG is just an extension of the perennial problems the nation is dealing with when it comes to the salaries of civil servants and workers generally in the country. He stated that this is not new in terms of demand but rather finds it interesting the term being used for the “so-called allowance”.

“Again, I am also reminded that the Deputy Finance Minister has come out to say that is not the name they gave to this particular allowance that CLOSAG is looking for, meaning that this name might not be the name for the allowance. For a better governance of the salary structure, I think an effort was made by the Kufuor administration when they came out with the single spine that was supposed to rationalize salaries of the civil servants in the country. And somehow, after Kufuor left office, I think the incoming government led by the late Professor Atta Mills, somehow, the implementation took a different direction.”
Professor Baffour Agyeman Duah

Workers seek allowances due to poor salaries

According to Dr. Agyeman Duah, workers find means of getting extra income through these allowances since they are not paid well. He posited that government is always afraid to increase salaries and always prepared to give out allowances because of the fear that once salaries are increased, it will affect the whole salary structure in the country

“That has been the case all the time. Look at the other public officials. They may be paid say GHS2,000 a month but then, you go beyond the base salaries to see the allowances that has been piled up, this person can be making three times or four times the salary.”
Professor Baffour Agyeman Duah

The CDD-Ghana Co-founder asserted that it was a wrong approach and suggested a return to the single spine salary structure which was a more serious attempt to rationalize salary structures in the country. He averred that the idea of stepping out of the national salary framework to give allowances is what tends to generate these demands by all sectors of the working community.

“Because once a sector realizes that a doctor for instance, has been given allowance for night duty or whatever, then the nurses association will come in, the hospital workers will come in. It’s the same with the universities and other public institutions.”
Professor Baffour Agyeman Duah