Review and scrap all outmoded public fringe benefits ....

.... in Ghana’s Public Service

I have actually lost count of how many times groups of public employees have gone on strike in Ghana over the past ten years. And especially over the past six years, not a single week passes without news breaking of a strike or threats of strike by one group of public employees or another. All these strikes and threats of strikes (withdrawal of services) are either over what the employees view as low level of salaries or the non-payment of some fringe benefits.

I have followed these spate of strikes in the public service in Ghana very closely since 2004. And I have monitored the various complaints too very closely. Of all the complaints of public employees in Ghana that have resulted in the withdrawal of their services (strikes) or threats of same, I can emphatically state that the only demand that has any merit in it has been the one by the Ghana Medical Association.

Their demand was not about some fringe benefit but it was simply about the outrageously low salaries that are paid to their members in the public health care institutions in Ghana. I was actually shocked to read from their complaint when they went on strike in 2010 that the salary of a freshly graduated police recruit with only a JSS (Junior High School) certificate was more than the salary of a freshly graduated medical doctor starting his/her career in the public health care system in Ghana. Where on this wretched earth will this situation prevail apart from the Land of Our Birth, “Ogyakrom” (Ghana)?

Yet when after so many attempts to get a rectification with government failed and they went on strike, the government propaganda machine went into overdrive to cast these striking doctors as demons and lacking any sense of compassion because people were dying.

The doctors eventually went back to work on the promise of the expressed goodwill of government to redress their grievance. Till today, not much has been resolved with the doctors. I have it on authority that the salaries of police officers in Ghana have been increased more than six times since 2001 yet they still collect bribes and no-one complains.

Much as some of the public employees’ demands may have some merits, I have serious problems with some of the fringe benefits in the public services in Ghana most of which are throwbacks from the colonial era. Most of these benefits are outdated and not in tune or reasonable in the modern era.

But no, we are only interested in steadfastly clinging to these colonial benefits. It is sad to note that all the so-called fringe benefits that the colonial government instituted in the public service in Ghana are still jealously guarded and maintained in the present day Ghana, fifty-seven years after our so-called independence.

We were very eager to kick out the colonial white man from power but we decided to live like the white colonial white man did. The post-colonial public service officer decided and has continued to live as the new “Black-White” man enjoying all the perks and ridiculous and unreasonable benefits, even if the national treasury cannot afford.

Some of these colonial perks and fringe benefits include the following, in order of importance to the new Black-White Man: 1. Government-furnished and fully-equipped Bungalow with a 50 to 100 fit land/garden around it. 2. A chauffeur-driven government car with a driver. 3. Two security guards (with an additional armed police officer in the night). 4. Two garden boys 5. A cook. 6. Free supply of petrol from the government filling station every Wednesday.

These government-furnished, fully equipped and government-maintained bungalows and chauffeur-driven cars are available to all public employees from many middle-level management positions upwards, most of whom do not even have job descriptions.

And for those that were lucky to work for the now-defunct national airline, Ghana Airways: they were “entitled” to 4 to 8 free airline tickets a year (depending on the management status of the employee) to London (UK), Dusseldorf (Germany) or New York/Baltimore. Now you understand why and how Ghana Airways collapsed?

And for those public employees that work in academia there is a benefit called “Book and Research Allowance”. This allowance is available and supposed to be due to all academic teaching staff of universities and polytechnics…and very soon to all tutors of tertiary institutions: Teachers’ Colleges, Nurses Colleges, Agricultural Colleges, “Banku and Tilapia Colleges” etc. etc. It is supposed to be used to buy books and conduct research.

When the government decided to suspend the payment of these “book and research” allowances and replace them with a National Research Fund to which academics could apply with proposals for funding for research, as is done in many civilized countries, the University and Polytechnic teachers rose up in arms and declared indefinite strikes! It later turned out that employees of universities who worked in the food and catering departments known as “Manciples” who had nothing to do with “research” and teaching were all taking these allowances. Do you now have an idea how deep the Ghanaian public system is rotten?

And over the past two weeks, a major bombshell has dropped in Ghana over these outmoded public employees’ fringe benefits issue: Under the Ghana Constitution, a Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) was established with the major constitutional task of identifying (and receiving complaints from the public as well) on perceived corruption and waste of public resources. Among its duties, this Commission is supposed to conduct investigations into alleged corruption in the public service and if possible recommend prosecution of offenders or work with appropriate agencies to retrieve such resources or monies wasted or stolen. And this is where the story gets juicy.

It was recently revealed that the Chairman of this Commission, Ms. Lauretta Lamptey, has spent $148,500 of public money in 33 months for her rent at the African Union [AU] Village from November, 2011 to August 9, 2014 when she moved out. She then moved into and has been lodging at a hotel and paying the Cedi equivalent of $456.25 per day in the interim, as her official residence is being renovated.

And all these monies are also paid from the national public purse. Wow! Wow!! Wow! This is a clear case of when “watchmen” are stealing the very property they are supposed to be watching and protecting. Many people have been calling on her to resign to save her beleaguered Commission and herself from further disgrace but she is asking everyone to go straight to hell if they know the short cut. It was shocking to read that some people are jumping to her defence.

On Saturday September 27, the Executive Secretary of the Ghana Free Zones Board (GFZB), Kwadwo Twum-Boafo condemned those who are protesting this outrageous waste of public resources. According to him, the $4,500 rent allowance she is alleged to have paid for a house at the AU village is not “strange”. “Paying $4,500 a month at AU Village, is it strange? People are renting apartments at Cantonments and paying 5000, is it strange?" Twum-Boafo fumed in a discussion on Radio Gold in Accra.

I am sure he is also being paid a similar amount, if not more for his accommodation and is afraid that his own will soon come to light. If private persons can afford to rent apartments at $5000 or even $10,000 a month, does that justify spending public money on same?

Even for the rich western countries that can afford, politicians and public servants are not offered free furnished bungalows, garden boys and cooks. As far as I know the only public servants in Canada who have free public “bungalows” are the Prime Minister, the Governor-General and the Leader of the Official Federal Opposition Leader. All public officials from Members of Parliament, Ministers to whatever all rent their own accommodations.

But in Ghana the first thing any public servant as well as the “Honourables” in Parliament and District Assemblies demand is “bungalow” paid for and maintained by the government. It was estimated in 2002 that the maintenance and running of government bungalows and chauffeur-driven government vehicles (most of them now 8-cylinder engines) cost about 30 per cent of the national budget. Are we really out of our minds?

I strongly submit that it is time to scrap all these outmoded public service benefits which are being abused and which have become severe drain on the national ailing economy. These colonial legacies have no place in modern-day governments and they should be scrapped immediately. We need to live within our means: cut our coats according to our shirts, they say.

Writer: Dr. Michael Baffoe is an Associate Professor of Social Work at the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada. He is also a freelance journalist and Contributing Editor and Columnist to the Ghanaian Community Newspaper in Canada, The Ghanaian News.