Fair Wages Boss In A Fit Of Anger At Meeting With Doctors

The Vice President of the Ghana Medical Association (GMA), Dr. Kwame Opoku Adusei, has dismissed reports that striking doctors will be returning to work today, saying “if your child is dead and you insist he is sleeping, you will have to wake him up”.

According to him, it is “going to be a long fight” since both government and the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission (FWSC) have dig in their heels and appear not ready to address their concerns. He revealed that deliberations with the FWSC have even taken a turn for the worse with the Chief Executive Officer of the FWSC, George Smith Graham, refusing to append his signature to minutes of a meeting taken by the Secretary of the FWSC.

The GMA Vice President further disclosed that the National Labour Commission (NLC) gave the association and FWSC 48 hours to try and resolve their differences, but Mr. Smith Graham, in a fit of anger, refused to sign minutes of the meeting of what both parties had agreed to in the presence of the Deputy Minister of Health, Rojo Mettle Nunoo and the acting Health Minister, Hon Haruna Iddrisu.

The GMA is complaining about distortions in the grading structures of the Single Spine Pay Structure, issues of unscientific determination of Market Premium and inducement by the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission, the inability of the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission to provide unequivocal evidence of migration of doctors onto the SSSS and the ambiguous stance of the Single Spine Salary Secretariat on the positions of District Directors of Health Service and Medical Superintendents.

It would be recalled that on Monday, October 17th, the NLC issued a statement assuring that the standoff between the GMA and the FWSC will be resolved within the next 48 hours.

The statement was released after the two bodies met with the NLC on October 17, to initiate the process for settling the dispute between them on the migration of the doctors onto the Single Spine Salary Structure (SSSS).

At the said meeting, the GMA and the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission indicated that they had held earlier consultations and were optimistic of reaching an agreement on the issues within 48 hours (Wednesday).

But speaking in an interview on Okay FM’s Ade Akye Abia morning show, Dr. Opoku Adusei accused the FWSC of resorting to “lies, deceit and misrepresentation” instead of addressing the issues at stake.

“If your child is dead and you insist he is sleeping, the time will definitely come for you to wake him up. It is not true that we are returning in 48 hours; the National Labour Commission (NLC) gave us 48 hours to meet FWSC if we can resolve the issue, but when we met, nothing good came out it…to the extent that the chairman refused to sign minutes of the meeting in the presence of the deputy minister of health and the acting minister,” he said.

He lamented that the FWSC resorts to the use of sentiments rather than a scientific approach in determining the grades of doctors anytime they are offered the opportunity to state their case.

He also confirmed that the association met with a former GMA president and one-time Defence Minister in the erstwhile Kufuor administration, Dr. Addo Kufuor, saying “he held a meeting with us to discuss how best he can also help resolve the issue and get us back to work.”