Tension Brews at Statistical Service

Tension is brewing at the Ghana Statistical Service as the Deputy Government Statistician, Professor Nsuama, resigns. Sources close to the service said reasons for Professor Nsuama�s resignation, among other things, could be the government statistician�s, Dr grace Bediako�s refusal to recognize him as her deputy. The source revealed that Professor Nsuama has been sidelined in decision-making and project implementation. According to the source, the immediate reason for his resignation could be the refusal of Dr Bediako to include him in the 2010 population census programme. The source alleges that cronies of Dr Bediako and juniors to experienced chief statisticians are rather assigned. These senior Chief Statisticians are being dropped for their assistants because of their links to the head. They accuse Dr Bediako for her divide and rule tactics which is affecting staff moral and performance. They expressed their reservation at the outcome of the pending 2010 census it staff continue to work under fear and intimidation it was gathered that trial census which has to be carried out at least a year before the major census has not been done. According to the source, the trial census would have helped them identify challenges and address them before the 2010 census starts. They accuse her of running a �one man show� at the service. They urged the government to put measures in place to avoid wasting the country�s scarce resources on the 2010 census which could be undermined. Workers are not happy with the way this important national assignment is being handled by the Government Statistician, Dr Bediako. The source accused Dr. Bediako of intimidating and harassing top management personnel, forcing the Director of Administration and others to resign to enable her carry out her agenda of bringing her cronies to take charge of projects. Information available to The Daily Democrat at press time indicates that management has hurriedly arranged a workers� durbar scheduled for today. It is alleged that this durbar was arranged to explain circumstances surrounding Professor Nsuama�s resignation and to water down brewing tension at the service. Professor Nsuama�s resignation vindicates The Daily Democrat in our earlier story under the headline: �Animal Farm at Statistical Service,� �Chief government statistician accused of intimidation, cronyism, poor managerial style and chop, chop: Deputy to resign soon if�,� this paper indicated that members of Staff of the Ghana Statistical service were calling for �head� of the chief government statistician Dr Grace Bediako, to restore morale and prevent eminent resignation of qualified and experienced staff. They accused her of bad management style, running the service as a sole proprietor business without regard for the availability of other top level management, promotions for the past four years� promotion had been frozen. It would also be recalled that The Daily Democrat wrote about the lack of trust between the Government Statistician and her Deputy, resulting in the resignation of the Director of administration. The workers then accused her of giving out contracts to outsiders when it could have been done on collaboration with the statistical service local union; she continuously appointed consultants and awarded jobs to them when the service has a rich human resource base in the office to do those jobs.