Tension at GRA over promotions

There is uneasiness at the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) over the decision by management to promote some junior staff over senior ones.

The development, which is said to have demoralized some employees at GRA, could affect revenue mobilization by the Authority.

The aggrieved staff are considering a nationwide sit-down strike and legal action to press home their demands.

A promotional course was organized in April 2014 for employees who took part in the last promotion interview in 2008, and they were supposed to have participated an interview in June 2014, but it was postponed to September 2014 because management thought the 2009 and 2010 Year groups had to take part in the said interview.

Some staff petitioned the Commissioner-General over the issue but management proceeded to interview all the three groups.

In a letter dated July 30, 2014, all Principal Revenue Officers (PROs), who wanted to be promoted to the position of Chief Revenue Officers (CROs), were required to obtain a pass mark of 60 percent in addition to a pass in their technical area of management.

Also, all candidates who met the above criteria were supposed to be ranked, and promotions effected to match the number of posts.

Additionally, all other senior officers from the rank of Assistant Revenue officer (ARO) who were vying for Senior Revenue Officer (SRO) positions were to obtain a pass mark of 50% and further pass in their technical area.

With the new criteria, an Assistant Revenue Officer with the Domestic Tax Revenue Division, for example, needs a score of 86.8 to pass the interview, which the candidates described as extremely unfair and ridiculous.

In a circular dated December 1, 2014, there was a variation in the determination of the pass mark of 86.8 for an ARO working within the Domestic Tax Revenue Division, while their colleagues within the Support Services Division were expected to obtain pass mark of 77.

But management decided to pass only 50 percent of interviewees due to the non-availability of vacancies, a contradiction to the earlier criteria dated 30 July, 2014.

“What it means here is that an officer who was part of the 2010 group and an obvious junior to another who is 2008 member who is promoted automatically becomes a senior to an officer belonging to the 2008 group who passed the interview but was not promoted,” one of the affected staff told the paper.

Oppong Damoah, Public Relations Officer (PRO) of GRA, admitted that all three groups were made to write the same exams but added that not all the successful candidates could be promoted.

That, he said, was because there were no vacancies.