Minister Orders Payments Of Entitlements To Redeployed Workers

Accra, (Greater Accra Region) 1 October, The Ministry of Employment and Social Welfare has directed the Irrigation Development Authority (IDA) to pay the 20 per cent salary increase announced by the government in 1990 to the 120 workers of the authority declared redundant in 1989. The redeployees who besieged the authority today to ask for their monies, had already been paid all their terminal benefits when they left in 1989 minus the salary increase. The need for them to be paid the 20 per cent salary increase followed the government's decision to have the increase announced in 1990 to take retrospective effect from 1989. At a meeting in Accra today, the Chief Executive, Mr O.K. Gyarteng, assured the workers that their monies will be paid promptly. He told them that payment was being processed for another group of redeployees who had earlier approached the authority with the same problem. Mr Gyarteng appealed to the redeployees to exercise restraint and to refrain from any negative attitude which would hamper the smooth processing of their payments. Mr Seth Kwesi Fumegbey, a spokesman for the redeployees, assured the management of their co-operation while their entitlements are being worked out. Mr Johnson C.Y. Adarkwah, District Police officer in charge of Osu Police Station also appealed to the workers to maintain the peace while the authority is working out their benefits. The directive of the Ministry of Employment and Social Welfare to the IDA to pay the redeployees their entitlements followed a petition they wrote to the Commission on Human Rights And Administrative Justice. The commission upheld their claim and asked the ministry to pay them.