The National President of the Association of State Attorneys, Francisca Tete-Mensah, has disclosed that state attorneys below the rank of chief attorneys are not covered by any pension scheme.
“As we speak, State Attorneys below Chief Attorney are not on any pension scheme. We are not under CAP 30 neither are we under SSNIT pension scheme,” lamented Tete-Mensah during an interview on Morning Starr on Wednesday.
She continued that: “We are not asking for a better condition. We don’t even have it. The state attorneys that you see going up and down in the court room bought every suit they are wearing it themselves. The allowance that should be there to help them dress has been taken from them.”
Mrs. Tete-Mensah, who is livid by the decision of the outgoing Minister of Finance, Seth Terkper to scrap their allowances added that “We don’t have telephone connections in any of our offices, we use our mobile phones—buy credits onto [them] and use to call police and…witnesses to court. We even pay for witnesses to come to court to testify….”.
The state attorneys, she said, had been neglected for long and that “we cannot continue working like this and drop dead before the government comes to our aid and it’s serious. What is happening to us is very serious. We can’t continue and drop dead. Right now if any state attorney drops dead there is nothing for us, that’s all we are telling Ghanaians. There is nothing. We don’t have pension.”
The Association of State Attorneys declared a strike on October 2016 in protest of government’s failure to meet their request for improved conditions of service.
The office of the Minister of Justice and Attorney-General described the strike in a letter signed by Suleman Ahmed, the Chief Director of the Ministry as illegal, threatening the striking Attorneys to return to work by Tuesday, January 3, 2017 or be “considered having vacated post.”
Mrs Tete-Mensah, however told Bernad Nasara Saibu, sit-in host of Morning Starr that” Our strike is being described as illegal, meanwhile it is not.”
