[dropcap]I[/dropcap]n the wake of plans by authorities of the Central University to dismiss over 200 staff in an ongoing retrenchment exercise, the Registrar Mr. Emil Afenyo has revealed in a leaked audio that the institution is financially distressed.
About 67 Senior and Junior staff of the University owned by the International Central Gospel Church (ICGC) were recently sent home in what management explained was the implementation of a staff rationalization exercise to reduce the wage bill and improve efficiencies in customer support, service delivery and administrative excellence.
According to him, the institution is heading to a crash; revealing how it spends a whoopping 2.7 million Ghana cedis for the past 10 months in running the institution which is even on overdrafts; MyNewsGh.com has the details.
“As I am speaking our staff cost is still 2.7 million cedis and for the past 10 months, we have been running only on overdrafts. So we are getting to a point where we are heading for a crash if you don’t do something drastic this time”, he told the affected staff prior to their dismissal.
He continued: ”For one year we tried to stop it but we have reached a point where it is no longer sustainable; so this is not all the drivers. All security staff who are employed directly by the university will have to go because the position of the document is that we should outsource all those departments. So what we’ve tried to do, the mandate was given was to develop a severance package such that at least no one goes away empty-handed”
In justification of the recent layoffs, he said “Indeed in fact if you have been listening to the news… a lot of companies are having to layoff, even the universities, for four (4) months now quite a number of universities haven’t paid anybody, they can’t afford it.”
“The list we have received which we are implementing has your names on it. And what we have negotiated and gotten approval for is that instead of just basic salary for each year that you have served, we are offering basic salary and rent. So that it is more appreciable. So we have a severance agreement which will give each of you to study. You can study it alone, you can study with your lawyers, its fine I mean you need to take a careful look at it and by Friday we want it back signed.
“The package which goes with it is what I have explained in addition to that if you are a junior or senior staff you get one month notice or pay in lieu of notice. What we are doing is that you’re going to take February us your notice month.
“In other words, we would pay you for February so that it wouldn’t have to come. But that, of course, is conditional upon your ensuring that you have exited properly which means handing over notes and all of those things that have been done, its part of the document so you will study it.” He said.
On how the institution determined those eligible for the sack he explained: ”Now the contract only spells out that this is not a dismissal. Because in previous times when some attempts were made by organizations and the questions of unfair terminations and the rest come up. It was drafted by our lawyers and the advice they have given is that if a company cannot pay its staff, it is within its rights to lay off some of them, and that is it.
“I also want to make it clear, I am sure some of you are wondering why you are the ones on the list, not others and, it wasn’t done randomly, the Vice Chancellor set up a committee of very senior people who have worked with you or have supervised you at one time or the other. That committee met and then they gave us this list. This is not the end, there would be a bit more but this is what we have for now”, he said.
