The Head of the Local Government Service (HLGS), Dr Nana Ato Arthur, has said the service is to embark on staff rationalisation and not lay offs by
The Head of the Local Government Service (HLGS), Dr Nana Ato Arthur, has said the service is to embark on staff rationalisation and not lay offs by the end of the year.
This, he said, was to ensure that staff were fairly distributed to the various metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies (MMDAs) and the sub structures across the country for efficiency and quality service delivery to the people.
Dr Arthur was reacting to reports yesterday[October 11, 2022] in a section of the media that suggested that the service was to lay off some staff of the service because it was bloated in Accra.
He explained that, per the posting procedures of the service, staff were sent to the 16 Regional Coordinating Councils (RCCs). From there, the staff were posted to the various MMDAs to work.
He said it had come to the notice of the service that there had been over concentration of staff in the urban centres to the detriment of the rural areas, hence the decision to embark on the rationalisation exercise to get staff to areas where their services were needed most.
Dr Arthur, therefore, urged the public to disregard the reports that the service was bloated and that some staff had to be laid off to enhance efficiency and effectiveness of the service.
” Recently we recruited new staff to enhance efficiency and effectiveness at the local level so why then do we turn around to say the service is bloated and, therefore, there was a need to lay off some workers,” he said.
Speech
Dr Arthur, who made copies of a speech read on his behalf to journalists at the third National Conference of the Ghana Association of Local Government Service Administrative Officers (GALGA) held last Friday in Tamale, said there was no where in his speech that he said the service was bloated and that there was going to be a lay off of some administrative officers.
Quoting from portions of the speech, the HLGS said, “In recent times, some concerns have reached Management and the Local Government Service Council (LGSC) on the increased numbers of Administrative Officers within the RCCs which have affected the caliber of officers. The number of officers available far outweighs the work schedule assigned.”
“As such, it literally becomes difficult to learn on the job as there is little or no work to be done. Management has taken major steps to address this menace and preparations are far advanced by the RCCs to rationalise staff in selected MMDAs to make room for increased productivity,” he said in the speech.
Dr Arthur said it was, therefore, ‘ridiculous’ for someone to misconstrue and report a staff rationalisation exercise, yet to take off, as a staff lay-off exercise when nothing of that sort was mentioned in the speech read at the conference on his behalf.
He explained that the administrative class were staff within the service whose services could not be dispensed off, hence the need to ensure that they were fairly distributed to the various MMDAs across the country to ensure an enhanced service delivery to the people.
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