The 2008 -2009 batch of the school of hygiene in Tamale are threatening to sue the principal of Tamale School of Hygiene, Alfred Asibi for allegedly condoning and conniving with some unnamed officials in high positions to deduct their salaries.
They are also accusing the principal of selective justice and favoritism in their salary deduction which started in January, 2014.
The 893 affected environmental health assistants say their salaries have been deducted to the tune of one million, four hundred and twenty- eight thousand, eight hundred (1,428,800.00) Ghana cedis without their knowledge.
The graduates got to know about the problem when the Controller and Accountant General Department wrote on their pay slips titled:’’ Government salary over pay recovery’’ which some legal practitioners according to the affected officers have described as illegal.
What angered the affected environmental officers more was that their colleagues who completed Accra and Ho school of hygiene have no such a problem.
Again, not even the petition and back and forth travels from the school to ministry of health, controller and accountant general department in Accra and legal aid yielded positive results.
The frustrated environmental health officers who are serving in the metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies in the country are therefore appealing to anti-corruption agencies to come to their aid for their salaries to be recouped.
A wireless message from the presidency which is in the possession of Zaa News, requested a list of all environmental health assistants who graduated from the Tamale school of hygiene in the period of 2007 to 2009 to enable economic and organized crime (EOCO) unit to investigate the salary deductions of environmental health officers in the Northern Region.
The wireless reads; ’’The ministry of local government and rural development is kindly requesting that you (environmental health officer, Northern Region) forward a list of all environmental health assistants who graduated from Tamale school of hygiene and have been posted to your MMDAs between the period of 2007-2010’’.
It continues:” This information is to assist EOCO carry out an investigation into deductions made”. Some of the angry environmental health officers who spoke to Zaa News expressed shock at the level of alleged corruption which seems to look like a grand scheme and a conspiracy against them at the time Ghana was battling with corruption issues.
Some of the affected environmental officers currently serving in the MMDAs say their co-workers from Ho school of hygiene have no such problems and wonder why it is only Tamale school of hygiene.
It is on record that frantic efforts have been made to hear the side of the principal of Tamale school of hygiene via telephone but he did not pick the call. As and when the Zaa Radio News establishes contact with him, we will hear his side of the story. The News team, however, called Mr Alfred Asibi twice and as well gave him a text message but he couldn’t reply.
Categories: