Erskine advises witness to hunt for a job

Accra, April 14, GNA - A Commissioner of the National Reconciliation Commission (NRC) on Wednesday advised a Witness to change his mental attitude and find a job so that the money used to train him would not have been wasted.

"Your troubles with the GWSC are not the end of life and it is sad to spend 20 years just writing petitions that have yielded no results," General Emmanuel Erskine, Member of the Commission, told Mr John Hayford, who was dismissed as Chief Accountant of the then Ghana Water and Sewerage Corporation (GWSC) in 1983.

"I appeal to you to try and reconcile your own self and seek employment to give your wife and four children some hope," he said.

He urged Mr Hayford, who looked depressed and tearful throughout his testimony, to avail himself of the services of the Commission's counsellors to help him come out of the trauma.

Mr Hayford, who said he trained in Britain for 10 years and belonged to the British Institute of Accountants as well as being a Fellow of Chartered Management Accountants, said the Citizens Vetting Committee through an announcement on radio cleared him as not being responsible for the embezzlement in GWSC in 1983.

However, no organisation would employ him, he said.

"As a management accountant or accountant in general, when you are said to have embezzled funds, no organisation would employ you despite your calibre or your standard," he said.

Mr Hayford told the NRC that he sent petitions to Alhaji Abubakar Alhassan, then PNDC Secretary for Works and Housing and appealed to officials at the Castle as well as to the Attorney General, but did not receive any reply.

"When government sacked you in those days, you had no chance to appeal," he said He said he tried to seek legal redress and though his lawyer wrote to the corporation, no action was taken.

Rather, a Committee that was set up recommended that he was redeployed from the GWSC and put in another government organisation where his services would be more useful.

Mr Hayford expressed regret that he worked for the GWSC for 10 years but the corporation did not pay him his End of Service Benefit (ESB). He said though he appealed to the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ), he had not received any response.

"This country does not want the truth and it is regrettable for a professional to be treated as though I was a criminal. If I had the means I would leave this country and would never return."

Another former employee of the GWSC, who said he was wrongfully dismissed in 1989, appealed to the NRC for his immediate reinstatement with full payment of damages. Mr Joseph Kwabena Asamoah, a former Internal Auditor, said he worked for three-and-a-half years for the corporation and was 42 years when he was dismissed. He said his dismissal was later changed to retirement.

Mr Asamoah as well as Mr George Ayittey Abby, Principal Officer and Mr Emmanuel Asare, Workshop Manager for the GWSC, were dismissed for alleged embezzlement.

According to the letters of interdiction, the officers were said to have claimed that they used the money to purchase items, including spare parts and tyres, for the corporation's vehicles and stationery. Mr Asamoah said Mr Abby and Mr Asare were also within the same age group and had worked for 19 years for the Corporation. "The dismissal and premature retiremen! t was an abuse of our constitutional rights as the Constitution pegged the age of retirement at 60 years." Mr Asamoah said the dismissal was also a breach of the Senior Staff condition of service.

He said that though Management of GWSC claimed their retirement was based on a directive from government, it was not true because that claim could not be substantiated.

He said he and his colleagues were arrested with three other top officials in October 1989 and he spent seven weeks at the Achimota Police Station. He said the Police did not take their statements.

Mr Asamoah said they appeared before the National Investigations Committee (NIC) that froze their accounts, took their statements and seized their passports and asked them to report everyday for three months to help with investigations.

In August 1991, a report from the NIC said they had been exonerated and no charge of financial malpractice was levelled against them.

"It (NIC) advised the GWSC that we should be recalled." Mr Asamoah said Mr Amprah Twum, then, Secretary of the GWSC, promised that the letters of recall would be forwarded to them but after six months nothing was forthcoming. They rather saw a publication in July 1992 that their interdiction had been changed to retirement. Mr Asamoah said the publication was fictitious because it based its source to a "Statement issued in Accra," adding it was rather meant for some 23 interdicted and dismissed public servants. He said they petitioned former President Jerry John Rawlings and former Presidential Adviser, Mr Nathan Quao but nothing positive came out of it.

They also petitioned Mr Kwamena Bartels, former Minister of Works and Housing, but he was changed in a Cabinet reshuffle. He said a response to a petition they later sent to! the Ghana Water Company Limited claimed the company could not reinstate them. He said that only one-third of their interdiction salary had been paid to them as at 1992.

Mrs Jemima Toseafe, Legal Adviser of GWCL, said the Company paid Mr Asamoah his ESB, which he mistakenly took for his long service award. "You cannot be paid a long service award when you worked for only three-and-a-half years."

The Reverend Father Samuel L. Lamptey, Head of Personnel of GWCL, said 75 per cent of the salaries, including the ESB, transport to convey their belongings, back pay and outstanding leave were paid to Mr Asamoah and his colleagues and only 25 per cent of their salaries was withheld. He said vouchers for some of the payments that were made were missing from the company adding since the company was not computerised at the time, they could not be retrieved.

Rev. Lamptey said the company by then did not know about the NIC investigations. He said although it ! was the Ministry of Works and Housing, that ordered the dismissal of Mr Asamoah and his colleagues, the company could not do otherwise because "those days it was obey before complain".

Mr Justice Amoah Sekyi, Chairman of the NRC, said changing interdiction to retirement was one of the most interesting things he had heard since the Commission began work and promised that the Commission would look into the matter.