GRA�s Promotion Brouhaha Resurfaces �. Staff Threaten Nationwide Strike

Staff of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) is threatening to embark on a nationwide strike action to press home their demand regarding promotions. Others are also contemplating going to court to seek redress.

The intended action follows alleged insensitivity on the part of management to concerns raised by the staff in various petitions to GRA management. Some senior staff of the revenue collection agency are peeved for being sidelined in the promotions carried out by the management of the GRA.

Our sources say even though the Employment and Labour Minister, Haruna Iddrisu, early this year ordered a human resource auditing to address issues relating to promotions and job placement at the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA), management had ignored the ministerial directive and gone ahead to promote some junior staff over senior ones.
The auditing, as ordered by the Minister, was to establish why some junior staff were promoted over senior ones, although both groups sat and passed promotional exams conducted by the Authority.

The aggrieved GRA staff are angered by the fact that the dictates of a Memorandum of Understanding between GRA boss, George Blankson, GRA Union and the Public Service Workers Union at the instance of the Minister of Employment and Labour had not been respected.

They have called on the Minister, who witnessed the MOU on January 28, 2015 to further intervene and ensure sanity prevails or they would be compelled to embark on a nationwide strike at an unannounced dated to press home their demand.

On January 21, this year, a Joint Standing Negotiating Committee was constituted to come out with an amicable and accepted solution to address issues of seniority and officers who had passed examination but could not be promoted. The MOU agreed that vacancies identified by the audit will be filled by taking into consideration seniority of officers and their scores obtained during the interview.

But Chronicle sources, who have pleaded anonymity for fear of reprisal, indicate that in spite of the ministerial intervention nothing has changed and that management was still engaged in the promotion exercise without any restraint.

The aggrieved staff are bent on embarking on a strike action or institute a legal suit to press home their demands this time, since the Minister’s intervention had yielded very little result. They said management was not doing them any favour considering their right to promotion which is now a bone of contention is their right.

They said they would resist discrimination and favoritism by the management of GRA until their right is granted. In April 2014, a promotional course was organised for employees of GRA who had their last promotion interview in 2008 and were supposed to have attended their interview in June the same year.

However, just when the interview was almost due, it was postponed to September 2014 to accommodate the 2009 and 2010 year groups, who were also due for promotion, The Ghana Revenue Authority Workers Union reportedly petitioned the Commissioner General to reconsider the decision over the promotional interview, but management allegedly ignored the petition and went ahead with the interview for all the three year groups.

The GRA set the criteria for the conduct of the interview for the three year groups thus an officer eligible for promotion from the rank of a Principal Revenue Officer (PRO) to a Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) was required to obtain a pass mark of 60% and in addition, must pass in his or her technical area and management.

“Depending on the vacancies available, all candidates who meet the above criteria will be ranked and promotions effected up to the number of established vacancies,” management stated in a letter dated July 30, 2014.

It was again stated that all other senior officers from the rank of Assistant Revenue Officer (ARO) to that of a Senior Revenue Officer (SRO) were required to obtain a pass mark of 50%, and in addition must pass in their technical area, but before the results of the interview were released, there were rumors that the criteria for passing the interview for officers from the rank of ARO and SRO, were being varied, creating serious suspicions, worry and discomfort for some officers, who saw this as a deliberate attempt by management to fail them.