<<Print>>

A Driver at the Western Regional office of the National Commission for Civic Education, who has served for nearly twenty years, says he may be forced to poison himself to death if his bosses do not stop frustrating him. Forty-nine year old Solomon Hammond has been ordered by a Sekondi Magistrate Court to vacate his residence in two weeks, after he was sued by the Regional NCCE Director. The Director had initially given him three days to relocate, failing which he went to court to get him out. According to Mr. Solomon Hammond, he was transferred from the national headquarters of the NCCE in 2009, to the Accra Metro NCCE office where he was deployed as a field worker because there was no car for him to drive. He claims his crime was that he had, at a meeting chaired by the late NCCE Chairman, Larry Bimmi, questioned why the costs of vehicle repairs were being inflated. He says after working in the field as an NCCE officer, where he explained the Constitution to several communities in his native Ga dialect, he was transferred again to the Western Region, where he started driving the NCCE Director, Mr. Kissi Abura. Solomon Hammond says his transfer to the Western Region came after he had been quizzed for giving out information on his earlier transfer for a newspaper publication. The father of four says his woes in the Western Region started when he questioned why his per diem for a two-day trip to Sunyani was slashed from GH�60 to GH�32, which was to cater for his accommodation and feeding. The well-built driver could not hold back his tears as he spoke of how the Regional Director whom he has served for over a year ordered him to pack out of his boys� quarters, a government bungalow, threatened him with police officers and later took him to court. �I am not fully educated but I know that in the NCCE, we are rather educating people. So for my director to have taken me to Court over this issue, I nearly poisoned myself to leave the Commission. For good twenty years in the service, I haven�t spoiled Government vehicle before, I haven�t had an accident before and I have good record with my driving. I don�t know what they want me to do. It is either to leave the work or they will sack me from the work� he said. Mr. Hammond, who has chauffeured virtually all heads of the NCCE which was until1992 known as the National Commission for Democracy, says he is deeply disappointed in the NCCE heads and the local Workers Union leadership who failed to call the Regional Director to order despite several complaints he filed to them. He said the Deputy National Chairperson of the Commission, Madam Doris Akumannyin, also advised him to pack out of the room since a new driver had been transferred from the Volta Region to take his place. Mr. Hammond says as though his woes so far are not enough, his request for a transfer back to Accra where he has accommodation and can work to cater for his four children and sick wife, has also been turned down. The two-week court notice will expire soon and Mr. Hammond is likely to be rendered homeless. After working for close to two decades, with what he says is a meager monthly salary, Mr. Hammond has no savings apart from his social security deductions. Since the Court ruling, he has been running around for financial support so he can get his belongings out of the room to either rent a place in the Western Region or quit his job and return to Accra. According to him, several apologies to his boss to pardon him for whatever offence he may have committed proved futile. An intervention by the Regional Minister�s office on his behalf, he says, made no difference. He says he is losing his head over the issue and cannot imagine suffering such punishment and humiliation for the many years of hard work. Solomon Hammond says he sees himself as one of the many civil servants who have suffered despicable forms of intimidation because they expose the ills in the civil service. The Regional NCCE Director who says the driver has decided to malign him by hopping from one radio station to the other, has declined further comment on the matter. He has served notice he may sue Hammond for defamation if he continues to tarnish his image.