Mills blames NPP for doctors’ strike

The strike action embarked upon by members of the Ghana Medical Association enters its fifth day today, with the doctors defying the call from government, including President John Evans Atta Mills himself, to return to work.

Yesterday, at the beginning of his Greater Accra regional tour, the President acknowledged the difficult situation his government was confronted with in handling the agitations in the health sector, over the unsatisfactory implementation of the Single Spine Salary Structure.

However, instead of telling the doctors the concrete steps his government was taking to “redeem” his failed promise to get them migrated on the new salary structure by the end March, this year, President Mills rather found it more convenient to accuse the previous NPP administration of leaving no money for the implementation of the SSSS.

Members of the Government and Hospital Pharmacists Association and the Pharmaceutical Society of Ghana have also served notice of an impending strike action to register their dissatisfaction over their migration onto the Single Spine Salary Structure.

The New Statesman can disclose the various agitations in the health sector have been triggered off by the realization of the nation’s health workers that the Mills-Mahama led National Democratic Congress has not been sincere about its promise to them at the begging of the year.

On Friday, January 7, 2011, George Smith-Graham, Chief Executive Officer of the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission, promised that staff of the Ghana Health Service and the Civil Service would receive their single spine salaries by March 2011 during which about 90% of public institutions might have been migrated onto the SSSS.

Earlier in July, Mr Smith-Graham further assured, "Our main focus is now on the health civil [sic] service and the tertiary institutions,” adding "we are hoping that [they] will be on [the SSSS] in August.”

The Mills-Mahama government made the promise to the health workers knowing very well that no provision had been made find the money to redeem the promise.

In July this year, when the Minister of Finance, Kwabena Duffuor, presented his supplementary budget to Parliament, only GH¢177.6 million was allocated for salaries and wages, out of the GH¢1.46 billion additional spending he presented to Parliament. This increased the pay budget for 2011 to GH¢3.91bn.

This increment as was revealed did not even take care of existing salary arrears, let alone take care of the migration of one of the largest public sector employees, health workers.

It was therefore highly improbable for the SSSS to be extended to the 68,000 health workers of Ghana this year, despite repeated assurances from President JEA Mills and Mr Smith-Graham.

According to a document prepared by the Ministry of Finance and titled "The Ghana 2011 Budget Strategic Paper”, Government knew the cost of implementing the single spine system this year would set it back GH¢5.3bn. Yet, it made budgetary provisions of merely GH¢3.7bn for total emoluments when the budget was read last November.

Yesterday, the Western Regional President of the Ghana Medical Association, Japatey Darko, yesterday accused the Mills-Mahama government of treating grievances of the Ghana Medical Association with contempt, insisting that they would continue to stay away from work until the distortions in the grading structures of the SSSS, issues of unscientific determination of market premium and inducement by the FWSC were resolved.

According to a report by the GNA, Dr Darko, who was addressing journalists in Takoradi, said the GMA had gone through all the channels of negotiations, including the presidency, but the authorities continue to trample on their rights.

He said early this year the GMA invited George Smith-Graham, Chairman of the Fair Wages and Salaries commission during its Executive Council meeting held in Takoradi, to address the anomalies in the Single Spine Salary Structure but the FWSC failed to address the issues raised.

Dr Darko said doctors are law-abiding citizens with conscience and would not embark on strike action for the sake of it, adding that doctors’ salaries had not been increased for almost three years and so they would not sit aloof for the government to continue trampling on their rights.