General News of Tuesday, 15 November 2011

Source: The Globe

I'm being witch-hunted - Embattled Korle-Bu administrator

The embattled director of administration at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, Nelson Menorkpor, has told The Globe newspaper that he is being treated unfairly by other board members of the hospital.

Different factions of the board of directors were at each other’s throat last Friday amidst verbal abuse and fisticuffs over whether the administrator’s office was to be opened or locked up.

The struggle resulted in injuries to some board members and journalists who were present at the melee. Menorkpor in an exclusive interview with the Globe newspaper said he was employed as director of administration in a highly competitive interview process with eight other applicants.

“I was selected as the best candidate for the job and given an appointment letter straight away,” he stated. “I then started work on May 1, 2010 as director of administration at the hospital. ”

“In my appointment letter, it was indicated that I was supposed to serve one year probation. My probation period ended in April 2011,” he added.

Mr. Menorkpor further asserted that, “I never had any query during the period; neither did I receive any reports of non-performance from my end. I assumed that after the April month, I was automatically confirmed as practiced by most public institutions.

“Five months after that I was given a letter from the board secretary that my appointment letter had been revoked because I did not perform satisfactorily during the probation period which I found very strange so I tried to make some contacts with the ministry to sort the issue out but the process was a little bit slow.

“I didn’t have any choice but to go to the courts because that letter pre-supposes that I am supposed to be out of office so I sought for an injunction on my employer not to move me out of the office. ”

He said plaintively that “the court dismissed the injunction I placed on the employer with certain reasons which I found were untenable because the defendant couldn’t prove what they were saying were the reasons for revoking my appointment so I quickly appealed and the judgment was read to us on Friday the 4th of November.

“I went back to court on Tuesday and at the time of serving the appeal from the court on them I had information that my office was being buckled. I have since submitted the appeal to the administration but it seems nothing of that sort has been done, but they’ve gone ahead to lock me out of my office and I have been working from outside the office after that. ”

He further added: “I don’t know why the Korle-Bu administration is doing this to me even though I have appealed against the decision that was gotten from the courts earlier. ”