OHCS clears five-year promotion backlog of 2,000 employees
The Office of the Head of Civil Service (OHCS) has commenced processes to clear a backlog of about 2,000 promotions accumulated over the past five years.
Nana Kwasi Agyekum Dwamena, the Head of the Civil Service who announced the development, indicated that the processes started last year and were expected to be completed by the middle of the year.
“Your figures are huge. We have even directed that now, when they finish with the first batch, they should bring it so that we sign and issue the letters. I am aware they are working very fast on that process,” he hinted.
Nana Dwamena was addressing a concern on delayed promotions, especially for Local Government Service employees, raised by a participant at the 22nd annual conference of the Controller and Accountant General’s Department (CAGD) in Cape Coast.
He explained that there had been some challenges with promotions at CAGD for the past five years.
He said there was also a tussle between his office and the Civil and Local Government Staff Association of Ghana CLOGSAG), which eventually ended up in court, incapacitating the Service to take any action.
“During those years, no promotions took place,” he said.
“When a matter is in court, you can’t do anything. I wasn’t ready to face contempt charges in court,” he added.
Nana Dwamena indicated that the case was resolved some two years ago and that paved the way for the processes to commence last year.
He, however, pointed out that civil servants who would be retiring this year would “unfortunately” not benefit from the promotions.
Nana Dwamena further announced that the Service was piloting an e-appraisal system to facilitate the appraisal and promotions of employees, adding that, “we are moving away from the manual system”.
He explained that just as the manual process system was closed after a certain window, the e-system would also be closed and, “that will be much more serious.”
“The system is such that if you fail to do your appraisal for a period, the system automatically logs you out. If they log you out, it means until next year, so ,you will not get the opportunity to do anything.
“It means, automatically you have lost one year and if you do that again for two years, you are in a big trouble,” he explained.
Source: GNA