Ho, May 24, GNA - The Civil Servants Association (CSA) has stated its intention to be the first to take issues with its employer, the government, before the Labour Commission if the government continued to foot drag on its concerns.

"We will be the first to test the neutrality of the Commission as an independent adjudicating body", Mr Smart Chigabatia, Executive Secretary of the association, said at a meeting with civil servants in Ho on Tuesday.

He said issues to be put before the Commission would be the suspension of the May 2004 salary structure agreed upon between the government and the CSA that the government put on hold as well as Cap 30. Mr Chigabatia said civil servants have accommodated discrimination for so long even though the 1992 Constitution recognises the right to equal pay for equal work.

He said the CSA would press for the restoration of rent allowances, salary advance, lunch allowance and others that are pay supplements for as long as the government is unable to establish a holistic pay structure for the country.

Civil servants in Ho have called on the government to use the salary structure agreed upon between it and the Civil CSA in May 2004 as the basis for the payment of salaries in the civil service with retrospective effect from January 2005.

In a resolution adopted at the end of their meeting, they asked the leadership of the association to use the May 2004 salary structure as the foundation for further negotiations for salary adjustments.