A senior staff member of the Guan District Assembly in the Oti Region, who was suspended and had her salary withheld for more than two years, has won a complaint filed against the Office of the Head of the Local Government Services (OHLGS).

Consequently, the National Labour Commission (NLC) has directed the OHLGS to reinstate the complainant, Christiana Edem Dugbazah, a Senior Human Resource Manager of the Guan District Assembly.

In a letter dated October 23, 2024, the NLC also ordered the OHLGS to pay the transfer grant of Ms Dugbazah when she was transferred from the Kwahu South Municipal Assembly to the Guan District Assembly.

A follow-up on the payments at the OHLGS indicated that the issue of reinstatement has been transferred to OHLGS council.

As though the predicament was not enough, she narrates a harrowing experience of how her belongings were removed from an apartment she once occupied and set ablaze at the instance of the management of her previous workplace when she was on admission in the hospital.

She also alleged her unlawful removal from office amid other claims of wrongful termination of pay, denial of promotion benefits by officials of the Kwahu South Municipal Assembly (and Guan District Assembly).

Background

The NLC issued the directive after Ms Dugbazah filed an official complaint against the district assembly.  

In the complaint filed at the NLC, she said she was employed in the Local Government Service in November 2012, and rose through the ranks to Senior Human Resource Manager, effective November 2021.

She alleged that the Kwahu South Municipal Assembly, which validated her monthly salary, had since stopped validating her salary, although the assembly acknowledged it was aware she had been excused from duty on health grounds, granted on July 1, 2022.

“Sadly, I was told  on the phone by the Municipal Coordinating Director  that the President has ordered a stoppage of salary for all staff who do not come to work, even if they have an Excuse Duty from the hospital.

“The Municipal Coordinating Director refused to accept all my submissions in conformity with Local Government Services regulations,” she stated in her petition.

The salary stoppage, she said, had negatively affected her hospital medication for fast recovery and general living, including other urgent financial expenses. 

Promotion

Ms Dugbazah further alleged that the same Kwahu South Municipal Assembly also denied her salary increment in conformity with her current grade of promotion as Resource Manager.

Furthermore, she alleged that the Municipal Coordinating Director of the Kwahu South Municipal Assembly engaged the police of Mpraeso, who broke into her residence without her consent, while she was on admission at the hospital.

“The Kwahu South Municipal Assembly is very much aware that I have been posted to the Guan District Assembly in the Oti Region pending appropriate residential accommodation and conveyance of my belongings per the sessions of LGS regulations, including payments and reimbursement funds.

“It is with evidence that the Kwahu South Municipal Assembly engaged the police of Mpraeso to empty all my belongings in my residence, including money and other valuable items, and ruthlessly burn same,” she said, adding that the issue by the Kwahu South Municipal Assembly aggravated her condition of depression, hence prolonging her recovery in a period of salary deprivation.  

The stoppage of her salary, she said had severely impacted her ability to afford medical treatment and meet basic living expenses during a critical period of illness.