The Civil and Local Government Staff Association, Ghana, (CLOGSAG) has raised concerns about the special assistants phenomenon in the ministries departments and agencies (MDAs), claiming that they (assistants) are taking over their official duties.
According to the association, “Political interferences in the work of the staff of civil and local government services have reached an alarming proportion.”
The Greater Accra Regional branch of CLOGSAG held a durbar yesterday over the issue and later resolved to fight the menace before presenting the resolution to CLOGSAG Executive Secretary Isaac Bampoe Addo, for action.
Regional Secretary of CLOGSAG, Samuel Nii Clotey Collison, who read the resolution, said serving officers are being ‘restrained’ and ‘frustrated’ in carrying out their functions and said these tasks are being given to special assistants of ministers and other appointees.
“We wish to state that the practice of using special assistants by ministers to take over schedules of serving staff within the civil and local government services is a problem to us. These special assistants are placed at the helm of affairs and perform functions as bosses over even directors in the services,” he pointed out.
Mr Collison underscored, “The practice has been pointed out as irregular but does not seem to bother the ministers involved. We are not saying that special assistants should not be employed by the ministers in carrying out their functions. All we are saying is that the ministers should give necessary room for serving officers to operate efficiently.”
CLOGSAG claimed that in most cases, special assistants are awarded scholarships/training programmes and attachments meant for a ministry to study abroad instead of serving officers in the Civil Service.
The association further said that there are situations where officers posted to specific ministries are expected to await the consent of the minister before such officers can be assigned and added that it is special assistants who are normally nominated to serve on boards and other bodies of the state.
CLOGSAG also complained about the alleged ceding of some core functions of the Civil Service to private consultancies or companies, claiming that information and data on CLOGSAG members are made available to such consultants without recourse to the law.
By William Yaw Owusu