The Ranking Member of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Health, Hon. Nana Ayew Afriye at the minority press briefing, called on the Minister for Health and the government to put political reasons behind them and address the issues of the health sector workers.
Among other issues, such as issuance of clearance certificates, months of unpaid salaries, and poor conditions of services, have been the concerns raised by health sector workers at demonstrations in past months.
The Minister for Health, Hon. Mintah Akandoh at his last press engagement, stated that 13,500 nurses and midwives whose financial clearance expired before their postings, the Ministry could confirm that over 7,000 have already been paid, and clearance has been obtained for the remaining 6,500, which will be processed immediately.
The minister also emphasized the efforts of the government at ensuring that all health sector workers are duly remunerated, attributing the delays to administrative lapses, and assuring the ministry’s commitment to the wellbeing of health professionals.
However, Dr. Afriye, the ranking member on the parliamentary select committee on health, argued that the delay in the clearance and salary payment of the nurses can only be attributed to political reasons and not administrative lapses, contrary to the minister’s claim.
The opposition member of parliament stated that the health minister did not need to seek clearance again from cabinet; all he needed to do was to extend the expiry date for the clearance from the Ministry of Finance and use it.
He made the argument that the supposed expired clearance covered 15,000 people and that money was allocated for their employment.
“Money was allocated for 15,000. You came in 7,000, almost 8,000 had started. The remaining were employed by the Ghana Health Service. Albeit they were late, but they were at post. You didn’t see the need to tell the institutions to reject them. Neither did the institutions write to you to reject them. What it meant was that they filled a gap and they were needed to be at post. So, the institution used them” –
Hon. Nana Ayew Afriye, Ranking Member of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Health.
The member of parliament for Effiduase/Asokore further argued that it is a normal practice in public service administration to extend clearance when it expires.
He therefore suggested that there is no valid reason, except for political reasons, for the government’s decision to leave the health sector workers without salaries for over eight months and later decide to approve another clearance at a cabinet meeting.
“Except for political reasons. They did not extend this for political reasons. And then, eight, ten months down, they face an embarrassment where the students or their staff went on a public demonstration to draw your mind to this clearance and the need for extension.
Embarrassing enough, you are saying that you’ve taken it to cabinet for an approver. What sort of cabinet do you have to take for an approver when you have a clearance already?” – Hon. Nana Ayew Afriye, ranking member on the parliamentary select committee of health.
Hon. Nana Ayew Afriye, Ranking Member of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Health.
Dr. Afriye further made the point that government is a continuum, emphasizing that there was no need for a successor government to abandon a process started by the previous government and allow people to work for months without pay.
Reasonable Opposition
The opposition member of parliament made the point that the minority has intentionally decided to allow the government to settle in properly in the first year, which made them stay calm on several issues.
He noted that when health sector workers decided to go on strike, the opposition came to the agreement that it was too early to support them to continue on strike, appealing to them to be ‘reasonable’ with the government and return to work.
Dr. Afriye made the point that they have decided not to be political with the situation confronting the health sector workers. However, it appears the governing party is hell-bent on politicizing the issues.
He further stated that even in opposition in 2020, the same party politicized issues of the health sector workers by supporting them to be on strike for three weeks.
He therefore called on the government to not take the opposition’s goodwill for granted by making sure that the issues are resolved without politicization, for the benefit of the Ghanaian people.
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