Ho Municipal Education Office, stop the en bloc illegal welfare deductions at controller

Per law, nobody can make any deduction from your salary without your mandate hence we are very surprised and disgusted, to say the least, that, the phenomenon of en bloc and ‘by-force’ welfare/insurance deduction seems to be creeping into our salary payment at Controller and Accountant General Department (CAGD).

You will recall that Ghana Education Head Office, Accra instituted an insurance/welfare policy where en bloc deductions were made which teacher unions vehemently kicked against then NAGRAT Volta also followed with same which was also resisted.

Currently, Ho Municipal Education Office has done the same where various amounts have been deducted en bloc at CAGD without any individual mandate of the staffs-teaching/non-teaching in the municipality.

It is illegal, wrongful to enroll any staff-teaching/non-teaching or any worker en bloc and by force without their explicit mandate and also pass back door at CAGD to make deductions from their salaries.

I believe some unscrupulous people are hiding behind this so-called Ho Municipal Office Welfare using fair or foul means to milk innocent staff of the municipality in the name of welfare.

Why would Ho Municipal Office conceive the idea of enrolling every staff to this welfare and make wrongful deductions at CAGD without their mandate? This is simply a ‘culture of impunity, culture of ‘create, loot and share’. When your staffs fail to appreciate the need for the so-called scheme and to fill forms to enroll, why do illegal en bloc deductions?

In this era, why would CAGD always allow these deductions without the individual staff’s signed input or endorsement or signed mandate form before effecting any deductions from salaries of workers? CAGD should consider SMS alerts of some sort for workers to endorse or decline before proceeding to effect any form of deduction.

I hereby ask for stoppage of the en bloc deduction, deletion of names of staff who have not subscribed to the so-called scheme as well instructing CAGD not to deduct any money henceforth.

Previous attempt to stop the illegal so-call Ho Municipal Welfare illegal deduction.

When some of us heard the intent to form Ho Municipal Education Office forming welfare, and subsequently decided to make membership a by force one, more so mooting the idea to make en bloc deduction at CAGD without our mandate, we confronted the authorities at the office and made them aware that, it is illegal/wrongful to enroll every staff by force and make deductions at controller en bloc.

The authorities called our bluff with the posture that our non-membership will not be countenanced/non-negotiable, thus, it is a “municipal decision, the office finds it difficult to make payments when a staff is bereaved or has a problem, thus if we are not interested, we should take release from the municipality and work elsewhere”. Such impunity….

The deceit

Since most staff declined to be part of the welfare being mooted by filling membership form, the authorities deliberately designed an electronic version of the personal records form and asked every staff in the municipality to fill with the reason that, having an electronic version of personal records form will make it easier for the office to store our information and hence could easily be retrieved.

Unknown to the staff of Ho Municipal Ghana Education Service, the office used it to prepare a so-called welfare scheme and thus made a deduction in October 2021. Even the name of the welfare suggests that it is more of an office thing, why extend it to cover every staff-teaching/non-teaching and make deductions at the controller.

The new trend at various organizations

The new trend is (which is worrying and illegal), when staff is given the free will to enroll nobody will enroll, hence “enroll everybody and do en bloc deductions, those who don’t want to be part should fill an exit form”. Why fill the form to exit if you have not filled a form of entry. This trend should be watched….