MIGRATION ONTO SINGLE SPINE; FAILURE TO PRESENT DATA-MAJOR CHALLENGE, DAILY GRAPHIC, FRI JULY 8, 2011 (PAGE 3)

Story: Della Russel Ocloo

THE delay and failure by some institutions to submit migration data for verification has been identified as a major challenge in migrating institutions onto the Single Spine Salary Structure (SSSS).
This is because most institutions were implementing allowances that had not been approved and so feared those allowances might not be accepted under the new structure.
Also, dishonesty in the presentation of migration data, with frequent insertions of names of casual employees as permanent ones had equally been identified as an impediment affecting the process.
The tendency of some public service institutions to impose their own ideas for adoption by the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission (FWSC) in the implementation process was as well identified as an impediment.
The Minister of Employment and Social Welfare, Mr Enoch Teye Mensah, made this known at a press conference in Accra yesterday on the status of the migration of public sector workers onto the SSSS.
According to him, FWSC had invited various institutions within the nine service classifications where the groups were requested to study and present their comments on the rules of engagement, which included the procedure to be followed in the negotiation of allowances.
"Regrettably, only the legal and judicial service and the education non-tertiary service groups have so far submitted their comments regarding the rules of engagement," Mr Mensah explained.
He stated that the delay in migrating the Civil and Local Government Workers Association of Ghana (CLOGSAG) resulted from the association’s decision in filing a law suit against the commission in which the court ruled that members of the association should co-operate with the commission in the national interest.
The commission, he said, had since then held meetings with the leadership of CLOGSAG to discuss and agree on their grade structure for an eventual migration for which further meetings had been scheduled for next week.
He, therefore, expressed surprise at recent agitation by members and challenged them to direct their frustrations towards their respective institutions.
The minister stated that although it was agreed with the Public Services Joint Standing Negotiation Committee before the migration process that salary arrears should be paid after all public service employees had been migrated, the government had issued a directive for the payment of arrears to be effected from September,2011.
He said that some 313, 097 workers had so far been migrated onto the scheme since its commencement.
The figure, he said, represented 70 per cent while some 156, 003 workers, made up of Teachers and Educational Workers Union (TEWU), the Federation of University Senior Staff Association of Ghana (UTAG), CLOGSAG, and Polytechnic Teachers Association of Ghana (POTAG), were yet to be migrated.
Others include Health Sector Workers, made up of Ghana Medical Association (GMA), Ghana Registered Nurses Association (GRNA) and the Health Services Workers Union (HWSU).
The Chief Executive Officer of the FWSC, Mr George Smith Graham, said their immediate priority was to ensure the above-mentioned groups would be migrated within July and August, this year, as they made strides towards achieving their September deadline for all workers.