Wa, Oct. 24, GNA - Civil servants have been asked to take advantage of the 70 billion Ghana cedis that the government had lodged at Home Financing Company (HFC) as loan for public servants.

Mr. Tennyson Folly, Vice President of the Civil Servants Association (CSA), said under the loan agreement, an individual could access the loan up to the tune of 25,000 Ghana Cedis, payable in 20 years.

He appealed to members of the CSA to access the loan to enable them to invest in businesses that would help them to live meaningful lives when they go on retirement.

Mr. Folly was interacting with members of the CSA at a meeting in Wa to explain to them what the association was doing about their welfare and also to hear from them what they expected it to do for them. He told the members that the association had negotiated for a new salary for them in July and that arrears from January to June would be paid them in January next year.

He said the association had started discussions with the government for new wages and salaries for 2009 and asked the members to work hard to justify whatever they would demand for them from the government. Mr. James Ekow, Acting Executive Secretary of the CSA, appealed to the government to share the national cake equally among workers and not to discriminate between the civil servants and public servants. He advised members of the association to stay away from politics, reminding them that by their condition of service, they were not allowed to participate in partisan politics.

He said the national executives of the association would put a day aside and award its hard working members and called on the government to support the idea to enhance productivity Mr Alhassan Issahaku, Deputy Upper West Regional Coordinating Director, advised civil servants to look beyond the issues of salary and invest in securities and other schemes for a prosperous future. He said no country had ever satisfied its workers with salaries and appealed to civil servants to disabuse their minds that they were the poorest among workers.