Tension Brews At Ahmadiyya Hospitals

…. Over Recruitment Scam, Victims Head to Court

Tensions are escalating at various Ahmadiyya Muslim Hospitals in the country, following an embarrassing recruitment scandal which has badly dented the good image of the Ahmadiyya Mission in Ghana, leaving hundreds of victims frustrated, having worked for years at the health facilities without salary.

The tension was so heightened to a point that, it took one of the deputy Ameer to rush to one of the health facilities last week, to calm down tempers of some of the aggrieved victims, who are still at post, The Anchor has gathered.

This paper is also informed, leadership of the aggrieved workers are in the process of taking legal action against Ahmadiyya Muslim Health Service and its management, after all attempts to seek redress on the matter, appear not to be yielding result.

This was after management of Ahmadiyya Muslim Health Service, an agency under the Ministry of Health, recruited several unsuspecting job seekers, and issued them appointment letters, without obtaining a clearance from the ministry, even though on the appointment letter, Ahmadiyya Muslim Health Service, had claimed the exercise was authorized by the Health Ministry.

The victims including; administrative managers, allied nurses, accountants, finance officers, health promotional officers, auditors among others, were made to believe that they would be place on payroll to receive salaries directly from the Controller & Accountant General’s Department (CAGD), but never happened.

The issue, which was initially swept under the carpet and prevented from getting into the public domain, until The Anchor’s publication a week ago, is said to be creating heightened tension among the affected individuals, after it dawn on them that they were scammed.

This paper has learnt that, the revered Ameer [head] of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Mission, Alhaj Maulvi Mohammed Bin Salih, until last week, was not aware of the scandal given the huge number of victims involved.

According to sources, even though the respected Ahmadiyya Mission leader, who is also a member of the National Peace Council, is allegedly aware of the need to recruit some staff to strengthen the existing capacity, he only gave approval for 198 people.

Insiders told The Anchor, as to how that number suddenly got bloated to over 300, remains a mystery and has set tongues wagging.

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.

The appointment letters, were signed by the Ameer Alhaj Maulvi Mohammed Bin Salih.

Excerpts of the letter, intercepted by The Anchor 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.”

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

One of the affected recruits, said despite spelling out their conditions of service, responsibilities and duties in the appointment letters and doing same to the best of their abilities, 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.

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

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

Scam; Aliu Speaks

The National Coordinator, Aliu Abudu Adam responding to the issues on Tarkwa-based ‘Mining City 89.9Fm’, following The Anchor’s publication last week, confirmed that, they were scammed.

“Ahmadiyya Health Service is an agency under the Ministry of Health. So, sometime back, we had a financial clearance to employ some health supportive staff. And we initiated the employment process, and we posted them to our various hospitals only to realized that we were being scammed by someone.”

According to him, they got the signal to recruit from an individual who also claimed he had from a certain former chief director from the ministry of health.

“Yes, we had it from an individual who said he also had it from a certain former chief director from the ministry of health. So, then we started the initiation…everything when you looked at it at the face of the letter is so convincing. So, when we started this thing, then it got to a time that we needed their staff ID. We were following these people, they were not forthcoming. So, we suspected that no, it can be some kind of scam, so we went back to the ministry to find out and we realized that it was a scam and we got them arrested and the case is before court,” Aliu Abudu Adam stated.

Demand for Compensation

Meanwhile, the victims said even though they have now come to terms with the fact that they were not cleared by the ministry, but deceived, 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.

The victims have meanwhile said, they are determined to resist any move by their employer to frustrated them in their resolve to push for their remunerations and compensation for the services rendered.

Source:Anchorghana.com