Algerian Director Terrorises Ghanaian Employees

At a time when both civil society organisations and governments within the continent are struggling on the way forward in bringing Africans closer, an Algerian Director of the Ghana-Lebanon Islamic Secondary School (GLISS) here in Accra, Mr. Hajj Ali Soualah, has brought to fore the suspicion of racial superiority complex that north Africans are perceived by many black Africans to suffer from.

Just about four years into his appointment as the Director of GLISS, an educational institution set up by the Ghana Society for Islamic Education and Reformation to build bridges between Arab Muslims and their Ghanaian colleagues, Soualah is reported to have turned the school into a slave yard, where he rountinely abuses Ghanaian workers.

Aside the verbal and physical attacks that some of the Ghanaian teaching staff have had to endure, Mr Soualah is also accused by staff of deliberately refusing to increase their basic salaries for the past four years.

Instead, he chose to increase their transport allowance as a way of avoiding high payments in SSNIT schemes.

According to some of the staff this paper spoke to, the practice has been going on for years and whenever any employee decides to draw Soualah’s attention to the anomaly, the person is either dismissed or harassed to resign. Whether you would be dismissed or harassed to resign, however, depends on the number of years the person has worked for the school.

As per the Service Conditions and Code of Conduct for the teaching staff as seen by this paper, an employee has to undergo three months probation, after which a two year appointment contract is automatically confirmed for newly appointed staff who come out successfully. After going through the two steps successfully, an employee is entitled to a permanent appointment as long as he or she wishes.

But the Algerian Director is accused by some staff of manipulating sections of the employment contract to his advantage.

According to them, the contract partly stipulates that a permanent employee of the school shall be paid an End of Service Benefit (ESB) after serving a minimum of four years at the school.

“When some of us recently sent a delegation to Mr. Soualah to draw his attention to an anomaly in our salaries in respect of the T&T and basic salary, he targeted us as his enemies and has used frivolous reasons to terminate our employment when we are only left with the end of this term to attain the four years minimum requirement for the ESB” said an employee.

To bustress their point, three teaching staff whose contract have been terminated by the Algerian, presented copies of letters emanating from the directors office on the June 18, 2007 notifying them of management’s decision to terminate their employment when one of them served notice to the management of his intent to resign at the end of the term as required by the service condition.

Per the calculation of Soualah, the resignation by Mr. Jamil Mustapha Swedor would have entitled him to his ESB. Conwequently, he quickly wrote to inform him last month that the school’s management has rather terminated his contract. He then ordered him and two other colleagues to perform their functions until the end of the term or lose their salaries for the month.

Ironically, the dismissal letters written by Soualah to the three teachers on June 18, 2007 were all based on the same reasons: Poor commitment, negative response to the administration’s directives, poor human relations and irregularity to work.

In essence, he accused all three teachers of the same behaviour, sins, thoughts and posturings. Contacted, the Head master of GLISS, Alhaji M. B. Alhassan earlier requested to seek permission from the school board as the Director at the centre of the controversy was out of the country.

At a later meeting between him and this reporter in the presence of his assistant and three other staff, he requested to answer questions on the three staff whose appointments have been terminated, and the under-declaration of tax and social security contributions of staff.

According to him, though the three teaching staff dismissed are among the best teachers the school has had, their recent misbehaviours have compelled the school’s administration to terminate their appointments.