Govt was never serious with doctors – GMA explodes

The Ghana Medical Association (GMA) has asserted that the on-going strike was necessitated by government’s lack of seriousness during negotiations over members’ conditions of service.

The doctors also accused government of failing to properly mandate representatives capable of taking any decision on its behalf at negotiations table.

A press statement issued at the end of GMA’s 4th National Executive Council (NEC) in Koforidua yesterday, disclosed that the chairmanship position of the government team, for instance, was never stable as it kept changing from time to time.

“It must be said that it was only on the day that the roadmap as stipulated by the GMA was supposed to come into force that the government team showed some signs of seriousness with the negotiations. The GMA therefore had no option than to roll out the roadmap on the 29th of July 2015, when no COS (conditions of service) document had been negotiated and signed as was demanded by the General Assembly of the GMA.”

The statement signed by GMA President Dr. Kwabena Opoku-Adusei and General Secretary Dr. Frank Serebour bemoaned government’s resort to “propaganda and lies with the aim of turning/swaying public opinion against the doctors despite the fact that it was the government that had not shown good faith at the negotiation table.”

Government was also accused of releasing “several altered and fallacious documents” into the public domain to make it appear as if government was making concessions while the GMA was being recalcitrant.

The striking doctors have set an August 14, 2015 date to either to call off the two-week old strike or resign en masse.

Ghana's New President, Mr. John Mahama holds First Cabinet Meeting

President and members of Cabinet.

President John Dramani Mahama on Wednesday began his first day in office with an emergency cabinet session, following the demise of the late President John Evans Atta Mills on Tuesday July 24 in Accra.

Earlier, President Mahama led the cabinet ministers including Henry Martey Newman, Chief of Staff and the Secretary to Cabinet, Ben Eghan, in a time of prayer to commit the soul of the departed President Mills to the care of the almighty.

President said, “It is said that in every adversity there are opportunities…may this adversity that has befallen us turn into opportunities for the government, God should give us the strength to continue with the Better Ghana Agenda.”

President Mahama arrived at the Castle at around 11.20 am in the company of his Aide-de Camp, security officers and upon alighting from an ash saloon car, a grief-stricken but confident looking President Mahama waved to some staff at the Presidency and the media who had assembled in droves to capture whatever was going to transpire.

He then headed straight to his office, where he occupied as Vice-President, and later emerged in the company of Mr. Martey Newman, Mr. Eghan and some officials to begin the emergency cabinet session in an adjoining building.

Although all Ministers at the meeting were tight-lipped, it is believed that they deliberated on issues concerning the performance of late President Mills funeral, the nomination of a new Vice President and the re-organisation of the NDC party to elect a new Presidential candidate for the December general election.

Source: GNA, GhanaWeb

"Ghanaians always hope for the best..."