Scandal Rocks Ahmadiyya Muslim Hospitals

…Mgt Uses MoH For ‘Dubious’ Recruitment, Victims Work For 2 Years Without Pay

Some health professionals and supportive staff working in the Ahmadiyya Muslim Mission Hospitals have been left traumatized, after they were recruited, issued appointment letters and made to work for years without salary.

This was after the victims who include administrative managers, allied nurses, accountants, finance officers, health promotional officers, auditors and others were confidently assured that their recruitment was sanctioned by government.

They are mainly desperate graduates who were engaged and posted to various Ahmadiyya Mission facilities, but without a clearance from the Ministry of Health (MoH) or Ministry of Finance.

Numbering over 300, the victims were made to believe that management of Ahmadiyya Muslim Health Service had secured necessary clearance from government, hence they will be put on payroll to receive salaries from the Controller & Accountant General’s Department (CAGD).

But several months and years after their employment, having worked so hard for the facility it turned out that their employment was not authorized by government.

This development, The Anchor gathered, has led the victims unable to receive salaries since their appointment letters were issued to them about two to three years now.

The letter, intercepted by this paper, among others, indicated that the appointment was authorized by the Ministry of Health. It was signed by Alhaj Maulvi Mohammed Bin Salih, the Ameer in charge of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Mission.

According to the victims, appointment letters were handed to them personally by the Human Resource Manager as well as the Medical Superintendent.

The victims, some of whom were contracted as far back as 2021, under the auspices of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Health Service, have been abandoned without pay, forcing them to live on the benevolence of families and friends.

At the Ahmadiyya Muslim Hospital in Agona Swedru alone, over 20 persons are said to have been affected. This paper is informed, the victims have been cautioned not to make the issue public.

Having endured the harsh economic condition for a while, those who can no longer cope with the situation have left their duty posts and are threatening to take legal action, while others are hoping to seek greener pastures elsewhere.

One of the affected staff, who was posted to the Ahmadiyya Muslim Hospital at Agona Swedru in the Central Region, says she was tired of the situation and so has left the facility.

Appointment letter

One of the victims [name withheld]told The Anchor, she was given appointment letter on November 1, 2021, as the Administrative Manager, but later reported to work in August 2022.

Excerpts of the letter reads, “The Ministry of Health has authorized your appointment in the Ahmadiyya Muslim Health Service, Ghana, as Administrative Manager on probation for one year with effect from November 1, 2021. You are, therefore, posted to the Ahmadiyya Muslim Hospital, Swedru in the Central Region.”

In the case of this victim, even though she was not paid anything, she still remained at post with the hope that something would be done by those in-charge of the facility.

But despite spelling out her conditions of service, responsibilities and duties in the appointment letter and doing same to the best of her ability, the faith-based hospital, has failed to honour its part of the obligation

This, she noted, eventually compelled a number of them to start leaving the facility, after several push and appeals to management to resolve the issues fell on deaf ears.

This paper gathered, there are staff who are still at post, but do not know when their names will be cleared for salary to begin hitting their accounts.

Fake hope

When this paper contacted other victims to find out why they stayed on even though they were not being paid, they replied that the continuous assurance from the National Coordinator of Ahmadiyya Muslim Health Service, AliuAbudu Adam, is what has kept their hopes alive.

“We were surviving on our own, we weren’t paid anything. They kept telling us that they are working on our clearance and they are going to get clearance, but apparently there was no clearance.

“The National Coordinator for Ahmadiyya Muslims Health Service that is Aliu. We were calling over our salary to the extent that he visited each of the Ahmadiyya facility to assure us himself,” another victim told The Anchor.

He mentioned that, the hardship was unbearable as she could not renew her house rent and fund her stay there since she moved from Accra.

According to him, even though some of their colleagues are still at post, some do not go to work often as expected of employees.

The Ahmadiyya Muslim Health Service has about six hospitals scattered across the country providing various health services to Ghanaians.

Demand for Compensation

He explained that, even though they have now come to terms with the fact that they were not cleared by the ministry, but hoodwinked, so far as they had worked for the organization, they have to settle what is due them.

“We are just asking them to pay us from August 2022 with all the benefits that come with the job. Right now, it is obvious we are not government workers but regardless we are Ahmadiyya workers, we have worked for Ahmadiyya so they have to pay our salary,” he pleaded to authorities.

“They did not have the clearance from government, if we had the clearance, we would have been government workers but we did not have the clearance but they told us that we have the clearance so they are going to generate the staff ID for us not knowing they didn’t have the clearance at all,” he lamented.

Management silent

When The Anchor contacted the National Coordinator, Aliu Abudu Adam, for response, he declined to speak on the issue, with the excuse that he could not divulge information to the reporter on phone because he cannot tell if he was talking to a genuine person or not.

Mr. Aliu Abudu Adam, who was hostile to the reporter, told her to look for his office in Accra and come for explanation.

He will, however, not also give a direction to where his office is located, as he rudely hung up the call.

More To Come…

Source: Anchorghana.com