Poly Administrators demand new Conditions of Service

The Polytechnic Administrators Association of Ghana (PAAG) is demanding an immediate resumption of negotiations with the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission (FWSC) over their conditions of service.

Starr News understands members of the association, who are administrative staff of all 10 Polytechnics in the country, have been working for the past 7 to 8 years without any binding conditions of service after the expiration of the previous one in 2009.

The situation, according to the outgoing National President of PAAG, Mr. Peter Yao Kosoe has created uncertainty among members especially, those approaching retirement as their fate hangs in the balance.

“It’s rather unfortunate that we’ve been working for the past 8 years without any condition [of service] and we have tried effortless to get government’s attention to attend to this particular issue, because that’s what give us the power to work in the polytechnic.

“And without the condition of service, then we’re just there, people even go on retirement and they don’t even know what they are taking home,” Kosoe told Starr News on the sidelines of the association’s 5th Annual Delegates’ conference ongoing at the Ho Polytechnic in the Volta region.

He also bemoaned the seeming discrimination against PAAG by the FWSC in the negotiation of service conditions with tertiary education workers.

“This is something very serious and I hope and pray that we’ll not get to the point where we always want to see agitations in the various campuses before we’re attended to… We administrators of the various polytechnics have been very calm, and because per our training, we always want to negotiate and we have done this till this time.

Our members are tired and they can no longer take that kind of treatment again,” he warned.

Meanwhile, the Deputy Volta regional minister, Mr. Francis Ganyaglo speaking at the conference, entreated the polytechnic administrators and other labour unions to always use dialogue in settling disputes instead of industrial actions, which he says, tend to have adverse effect on the economy.