A group calling itself the Coalition of National Enumerators and Supervisors (CONES) has issued a two-week ultimatum to the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) to release their outstanding salaries before embarking on another data collection campaign.
CONES collected data on all farmers in Ghana to know the type of farming activities they engage in.
The GSS contracted the services of the data collectors in April 2018 but following the completion of the work in August 2018, they say they are yet to receive the payment of the final tranche of the lump sum promised them.
President of the coalition, Martin Ofosu Ansah, who spoke to Citi News, said his members will not sit down and watch the statistical service embark on another data collection campaign while it still owes officers of the previous exercise.
“The Statistical Service employed over 4,000 workers nationwide. The terms of payment were made in a way that we will receive a 15, 40, 45 per cent respectively and the last tranche which was the 45 per cent was subjected to satisfactory work done by the workers. As we speak, for over a year now, we are yet to receive full payment of the 45 per cent of the Ghana Statistical Service. From what we are hearing, if we don’t keep them on their toes, we won’t receive our monies.”
The coalition is made up of enumerators and supervisors, contracted by the Ghana Statistical Service in April 2018.
They claimed that as field officers, they clearly remembered times when the GSS synched back data to field officers for visitations at their own cost.
CONES has categorically stated that the statistical service risks facing a lawsuit for contract breaches and negligence of duties if the arrears are not paid.