The Fair Wages and Salaries Commission (FWSC), has justified its decision to block the payment of allowances to some staff of the Ghana Broadcasting Cooperation (GBC).
The Commission insisted that the over GH¢2 million paid as allowances to staff of the state broadcaster must be refunded.
Management of GBC had petitioned the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission not to cease the payment of the allowances until a final determination of the matter was reached.
But the CEO of the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission, Benjamin Arthur says the Commission will do what is right after the Commission had earlier written to officials of GBC notifying them of the current decision.
“The action that has been taken is the right course. These are unapproved allowances, and they were never negotiated in the Single Spine Salary Structure. It has always been consolidated and they [the allowances] never existed. GBC has four non-core allowances and these are allowances meant for people who are in category four [positions]. When we say category four, it is directorship and above and the people who have been affected are nowhere near directors. We have labourers who are also taking cleaner and domestic servant allowances.”
“We are paying rent allowance for 739 staff who are below the rank of directors and interestingly, you will find a principal who is taking it and all other principals are not taking it and so the question is what is peculiar about that specific principal, and we had written to them [GBC] far earlier indicating that we were going to strike those names out, but they decided to give us feedback that suggested that there was even no need to embark on such an action.”
Staff of the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation have threatened to embark on a series of industrial actions if the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission does not reinstate their allowances.
Samuel Nat Kevor, the Divisional Union Chairman of GBC, on Tuesday, May 23, urged the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission to reverse its decision to withdraw allowances for the staff or face consequences.