Ex-DCE challenges JAK over NMP's pay

The Former district chief executive for Mfantiman in the central region, Mr. George Kuntu Blanckson has asked his excellency President Kufuor to come out and explain to Ghanaians and the world at the large, the meaning of the two months pay his government has recommended to be paid to the ex-staff of the National Mobilization Programme (NMP), who were removed from their jobs when the government took over the reign of the country.

He said his call on the president to come out and explain things is premised on the fact that no worker in Ghana at the moment would accept a peanut of two months of his basic pay as his severance award, after rendering his services to the state for almost fifteen years.

Speaking to the Chronicle at Takoradi last Tuesday, Mr. Kuntu Blanckson said this strange decision by President Kufuor’s government could not have happened under any proper democratic system of government, but this is exactly what a government that has been preaching the rule of law and proper justice had meted out to her own citizens.

According to him, the ex staff of the NMP are finding it very difficult to understand this rather strange decision because, President Kufuor’s government did not hand over any letter terminating the appointment of the ex-staff let alone, explained the reason for their action except salary discontinue they wrote on their pay slips. He was therefore at loss, as to why the government decided to hand down such injustices to her own people she has come to improve upon their life.

Mr. Kuntu Blanckson argued that if even there was something wrong with the way the staff were appointed by the then government, the only thing the government should have done was to rectify the anomaly but not throw away the over 3000 staff to the unemployment market with an insulting two months basic pay as their send off.

The ex DCE wondered if President Kufuor or any member of his government after serving his constitutional term of office, would be prepared to accept the peanut his government has recommended to be paid to the ex-NMP staff as their entitlements for the meritorious service he has rendered to the state.

When this reporter asked him why they have up to date not gone to court over the issue if they feel they have genuine case, Mr. Kuntu Blanckson replied that if the government actually believes in the rule of law and equal right as it has always been preaching, it would have responded, when the workers dragged her to the Commission of Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) over the issue, but it never did so.

He believes that if the government could refuse to appear before CHRAJ, which was a democratic step the workers took, then there is no need of going to court since that would be a battle in futility.

When he was further asked whether he and the ex-workers have not accepted defeat after saying that the government should have rectified their mode of appointment it she thinks otherwise, Kuntu said his statement should not be misconstrued to mean that the procedure used in appointing the NMP staff by the previous government was wrong.

He contended that all the staff were appointed by the NDC government according to the relevant laws of the state, and were also dully covered by the civil service act of 1960. Apart from this, the ex staff were also paying their civil servant dues in addition to their social security contribution which were being paid on their behalf by the government as it does for other workers on her pay roll.

To Kuntu, it was about time people stopped doing politics with the painful dismissals of the staff who are also citizens of this country and the decision to pay them only two months of their basic pay which no worker would accept