Fire all striking workers, replace them with military – Prof Adei on ‘neutrality allowance’

Professor Stephen Adei has proffered a drastic solution to an ongoing strike by the Civil and Local Government Staff Association of Ghana, CLOGSAG.

According to the former rector of GIMPA, the government should fire all striking workers and replace them with the military as a stop-gap measure as it recruits their replacements.

CLOGSAG laid down their tools over the now controversial ‘neutrality allowance.’

The Association started a strike a week ago on April 21, 2022, over the government’s inability to pay the allowance agreed on in January.

Prof Adei described the neutrality allowance as a type of bribe that the government had agreed to pay to workers despite the economic headwinds the country was facing.

“They are taking the ordinary Ghanaian for granted, what about the unemployed? Are they more in need or less in need than the public servant? We are in a national crisis and that life is difficult, I have no doubt at all. But for the government to say they are going to pay, is bribery.

“It is bribery, that I am going to pay so that you don’t go to the opposition or vice versa. To me, it is the worst I can ever think of as someone who was in the public sector for 35 years and was the head of the public service training institution. I just can’t conceptualise it,” he lamented.

While admitting the importance of CLOGSAG, Prof Adei stressed that they needed to aver their minds to the current economic situation. “They are relevant, for the public sector not to be relevant, to say that is wrong; but this is a national crisis.

“If I were in government, I will lock them out, sack them and then bring in the military to take care of emergencies and see what they will do.

“Sack them and bring in the military for emergencies for three months, after that they can apply if they want to remain neutral or continue to stay home,” Prof Adei noted.

Neutrality allowance is defined as an allowance paid to civil and local government workers to prevent them from engaging in partisanship while conducting their affairs when they are in their various offices.

Meanwhile, this has sparked conversations on whether payment of the allowance is necessary, especially in the midst of the current economic hardships.

However, the government has agreed to pay the ‘Neutrality Allowance during the last quarter of 2022