GHOSPA blames FWSC boss for “painful” grievance

The Government and Hospital Pharmacists Association (GHOSPA) has laid at the doorstep of the Chief Executive Officer of the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission (FWSC), the blame of members’ grievances under the Single Spine Pay Policy (SSPP).

It says all labour negotiations including those conducted by quasi-judicial bodies have concluded in favour of GHOSPA, but the process of resolving the grievances have been personally hampered by George Smith-Graham.

According to GHOSPA’s Spokesperson, Ernest Owusu Aboagye, job evaluations conducted since 2006 for the health sector have placed pharmacists higher than where they are, under the SSPP.

“The last one, Mr. Graham himself did the computations and from his own calculations, we do not deserve to be placed where we have been placed since 2010,” Mr. Owusu Aboagye stated on TV3’s Hot Issues on Saturday, March 8.

He said if within the next one week, GHOSPA does not hear favourably from government, “we will advise ourselves,” pointing out that one of the options available is to withdraw services, as unpleasant as it may be for the country, he adds.

“We have struggled painfully to exhaust every means possible,” the pharmacist-cum-lawyer observed.

GHOSPA’s grievances have gone as far as the Presidency, where Chief of Staff Prosper Bani tasked a committee to look into their concerns.

A ruling by the National Labour Commission (NLC) ordering FWSC to pay pharmacist what appears to be due them was overturned by an Accra High Court.

“We are suffering a double jeopardy now, and are likely to do it when we go on pension because our pension contribution since 2010 has dropped,” Mr Owusu Aboagye lamented.

“When one man says forget it, you are not going to get,” he mentioned, referring to Mr Smith-Graham.