October 12

WWW.DAILYHERITAGE.COM.GH DAILY HERITAGE FRIDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2018 03
Fair Wages staff
declare strike
BY OSEI OWUSU AMANKWAAH
• Over bad wages
STAFF OF the Fair
Wages and Salaries
Commission are
on a sit-down
strike to protest
their migration onto the single
spine salary structure.
The staff members of
the agency are not happy
with the little engagement
leading to their migration
onto the salary payment
scheme.
A source said the current
package, which has been
presented, will make them
worse off.
“We sit at the negotiation
table for all professionals.
We know what they are getting
so why are we being
given far less than what we
give other professionals?
“This package is not fair
to us and management must
respectfully take a second
look at it,” the source said.
•Dr Edward Kwarpong, Chief Executive Officer,
Fair Wages and Salaries Commission
They are therefore asking
management to take a
second look at their package
or resort to the proposal
from the
Constitutional Review
Committee White Paper
which suggested that a
body be set up to negotiate
for workers to prevent any
issue of conflict of interest.
“We will go to work but
we won’t engage in any
meaningful activity until we
hear something positive
from management. We are
not asking for too much.
We want to be treated
fairly,” the source added.
The Managing Director
of the Fair Wages and
Salaries Commission, Dr
Edward Kwarpong, has
meanwhile told ‘Starr
News’ the company’s Board
would be meeting over the
disturbing issue.
“It is quite upsetting that
we, who are granting condition
of service for other institutions,
do not have our
own condition of service,
which is quite disheartening,”
a staff member said in
an interview.
The sit-down strike is
expected to last for a week
after which the next line of
action will be announced by
leaders of the workers if
management does nothing
about their concerns.
Another staff member
said, “when anyone hears
that you are a worker of the
Fair Wages and Salaries
Commission, they expect
that you should command
some kind of prestige because
you are the one that
negotiates for others but
that is not so. We are very
demoralised. We are not
happy and our commitment
to work has dwindled.”
The strike has disrupted
activities at the Commission
as staff do little or no work
after reporting for work.
169 on death row
• READ FROM PAGE 2
Penalty reports that many testimonies
document the inhumane
living conditions that people sentenced
to death endure.
The report states that though
people on death row are entitled to
the same basic rights and treatment
conditions as other categories of
prisoners, as set out in the UN
• 65yr-old asthmatic patient also waiting to be killed
Standard Minimum Rules for the
Treatment of Prisoners (the Nelson
Mandela rules), the situation is
harsh and inhumane, adding to the
mental stress of condemned prisoners.
Speaking to the DAILY
HERITAGE in Accra yesterday,
the Director of AIG, Mr Robert
Akoto Amoafo, said the situation
for people on death row at
Nsawam prisons is no different as
cells built for 60 people now house
163.
Mr Amoafo said currently,
Ghana has 169 people on the
death row out of which 163 are
males with six of them being females,
including a-65-year old asthmatic
patient, waiting for their fate.
“But the good news is that
since 1993, no government has assented
to the execution of prisoners
on death row but the sad thing
is that what then is the law still
doing in our books?” he questioned.
Mr Amoafo said Amnesty International
has listed Ghana as
abolitionist nation by practice but
judges still sentence people to
death because the law still exists in
the books.
“What we are saying is that it is
time for Ghana to abolish the law
because taking one’s life because
he/she killed a fellow does not
give criminals the opportunity to
reform and the conditions at
Nsawam prisons for people on
death row are not pleasing and do
• CONTINUE ON PAGE 5