The Executive Committee of the Civil Servants Association of Ghana on Friday said it was disappointed at the "unduly slow pace" of negotiations between the Association and the government, represented by the Central management Board (CMB), on salary increases for 2002.
"Even though negotiations started as far back as February, very little progress has been made in the direction of reaching a mutually acceptable salary adjustment level," it said in a statement after an emergency meeting in Accra on Friday.
The Association said it blamed this on the casual attitude of the CMB and, for that matter, government, and called on the authorities "to quicken the pace in order to contain the incipient discontent in the Civil Service."
The statement said the implementation of the Ghana Universal Salary Scale (GUSS) was to span a period of three years in the medium-term during which disparities between salaries between civil and public servants would have been bridged.
"As we enter the fourth year of implementation of GUSS, it is disheartening to note that these disparities have rather widened. "The Association is disappointed at these developments and would wish to see a positive move in this gap-closing exercise this year."
The statement said the Executive Committee has also noted with dismay the slow attention given by the Appellate Body to petitions from civil servants regarding their salaries and called on it to expedite action on these petitions.
The Executive Committee also called on the Office of the Head of Civil Service to put in place immediately a new scheme for civil service departments for better placement on the GUSS in order to forestall frustration among civil servants.
It said it believed that most of these problems had arisen because of the absence of a substantive Head of the Civil Service and called on the government to take immediate steps to appoint a substantive head for effective service delivery.
