Regional News of Wednesday, 7 May 2008

Source: GNA

Check arbitrary deduction of workers salary

Agona Swedru, May 7, GNA- Mr Francis Odoom, Agona West Municipal Chairman of the Council of Labour has expressed concern about the arbitrary deduction of workers salaries by the Controller and Accountant General Department (CAGD) last month. He said the deduction "without any tangible explanation has brought untold hardship to the affected workers" in the Agona West Municipality. Speaking to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) at Agona Swedru on Tuesday, Mr Odoom said last month majority of the workers did not receive their salaries at all. He said complaints received from heads of department indicated that there were discrepancies in the amount of the few workers who received salaries. Mr Odoom said workers were not able to solve the problem with their banks because their pay slips for April had not been received to sort out or correct the anomalies detected. He said the work of the CAGD of late was not encouraging, adding that, there had been several complains of their computer network not working effectively as expected. The Chairman gave an example of some workers, who had only GH¢10 instead of GH¢300, when they went to the banks for their pay. He appealed to the government to procure new machines for the Controller to address the problem. The Municipal Chairman of the Council of Labour urged the CAGD to check unscrupulous people who were going round stealing some workers pay slips to secure loans and also buy on high purchase. On the fuel hike, Mr Odoom appealed to the government to find a way of cushioning workers to cope with the high cost of transportation.