Public sector doctors have been striking over the last five days to be migrated onto the Single Spine Salary Structure and have refused numerous calls to rescind their decision.
On Tuesday, president Mills at a durbar in Dodowa pleaded with the agitating doctors to return to their health centres.
However, Nana Akufo-Addo has challenged the president, who said the SSSS is facing a lot of problems because the previous NPP government failed to leave funds to service it, to go beyond rhetoric and act.
Speaking to journalists on Wednesday, the main opposition standard bearer described the president’s comment as “unfortunate. ”
“That is a most unfortunate statement. The president who has been in office for nearly three years under whose government the migration of other sectors of public servants onto the Single Spine Salary Structure had taken place,” he said.
“We should have heard about this from the very beginning that no money has been left, and therefore public sector workers would have to wait for a while to effect the migration. In the midst of the exercise suddenly we’re told three years down the line that the NPP didn’t leave any money.
“Perhaps it would have been better for the NPP to have left the ministers and the president, who could have done this in a more intelligent manner. It is clear that the responsibilities that have been placed in his hands this is not the manner in which they should be discharged.
“You are merely at the end of your mandate and you continue to blame the NPP. It was not the NPP government that gave the promises to the health workers that in the course of this year they will be migrating,” Nana Addo stated.
While appealing to the agitating doctors to return to their post, Nana Addo also asked president Atta-Mills to immediately order his Minister for Health, Joseph Yieleh-Chere to, without delay, engage the leadership of the striking doctors in order to bring the ongoing industrial action to a closure.
“He is the man who can dismiss a doctor like Dr Frimpong Boateng from his job with immediate effect. I would have thought such a person is the one the president should instruct with immediate effect to engage with the doctors,” he said.
Nana Addo added: “I’m appealing to them that no matter the justness of their case there are so many fine people of that profession with very responsible attitude to getting to work. I believe that with some of the stories coming out the entire society will be grateful to them if they were to find a way of getting back to work. ”
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