The Civil and Local Government Staff Association of Ghana (CLOGSAG), has disputed President Akufo-Addo’s comments that the Ghanaian worker has a poor attitude to work.
The President at the May Day Parade on Monday said some public sector workers after arriving at work, waste time praying and engaging in other unproductive activities and some even leave the office ahead of the official closing time.
“We arrive at work late and then spend the first hour in prayer, we become clock watchers and leave in the middle of critical work because it is the official closing time. Everything comes to a stop when it rains and we seem to expect the rest of the world also to stop.”
“We have no respect for the hours set aside for work. We pray, we eat, we visit during working hours. We spend hours chatting on the telephone… we take a week off for every funeral and then we wonder why we are not competitive,” President Akufo-Addo stated.
He therefore charged the leadership of various unions to lead a campaign to change that attitude. However in an interview with Citi News, the Executive Secretary for CLOGSAG, Dr. Isaac Bampoe did not entirely agree with the President.
“I am not saying we are 100 percent correct or we are doing everything right. Definitely one or two people will complain about the service and that should not be an issue. The fact that one or two people have complained about the service does not mean the whole service is that bad.” He said an assessment of the Civil Service gave a different account from the President’s view.
“He the President is just coming to the office so if there is something that he feels ought to be done, we don’t see anything wrong with it; but for him to complain does not mean that the whole service is that bad. We will get him an assessment of our chief directors and I will say that over 90 percent got an A and I don’t think that is a bad assessment. We in the civil service are doing very good.”he explained.