The livelihood of several staff members of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA) risks being taken away as the Rector, Prof. Samuel Kwaku Bonsu, has allegedly refused to renew their contracts. Some staff have worked at the Institute for over a decade, rendering critical services.
This situation has sparked discontent among the institute’s faculty (lecturers) and senior, middle-level, and junior staff, leading to mounting tension on its campuses. In addition to the Greenhill campus at Achimota, GIMPA has Tema, Kumasi, and Takoradi campuses.
According to sources, some of these workers’ contracts have been on the Rector’s desk awaiting renewal for over a year.
He has allegedly granted monthly and quarterly extensions so the workers won’t be locked out of the system. This unfair treatment has lowered the workers’ morale and has left the affected workers in a state of frustration and anxiety.
Despite repeated requests and appeals from the relevant workers’ unions and individuals within the Institute, the Rector has purportedly shown no urgency in addressing their plight. It is believed that he deploys this inhuman treatment to create uncertainty and subjugate the staff and faculty.
One worker, who preferred to remain anonymous, expressed dismay at the Rector’s actions, describing them as “unfair and inhuman.”
Another staff lamented, “All he does is continuously ask for them to be given two or three months pending the renewal, which is a bad practice and against the conditions of service of public service employees.”
Some workers also blamed the GIMPA’s over eighty-year-old Council Chairman, Mr. Piesie Kofi Darko Asante, for shielding the Rector and exacerbating the crisis surrounding contract renewals and many other matters destroying the Institute.
According to sources within the GIMPA community, Mr. Kofi Darko Asante is alleged to be in bed with the Rector, Prof. Bonsu, and has been protecting him from accountability. It is further alleged that the Rector, who has proven to be grossly inefficient, does not even have a performance contract issued by the GIMPA governing council Chair. The blind support and cover provided by the Council Chair has only emboldened Prof. Bonsu to mismanage the Institute.
A worker remarked, “This is the same man (Mr. Kofi Asante Darko, the current GIMPA Council Chair) who caused several problems as Executive Secretary at the Energy Commission during former President John Kufour’s era which led to his dismissal after a report by then Auditor General Prof Edward Dua Agyemang indicted him for corruption and nepotism.”
‘Sammy Bonsu was a senior faculty member of the GIMPA community until he was appointed Rector under unethical circumstances. Due to his arrogance and incompetence, he failed to secure the renewal of his Deanship at the GIMPA business school and later the Deputy Rectorship of the Institute.
Yet, we were hoping that he had changed and would raise the bar of Prof. Philip Bondzi-Simpson. Over the past two years, the standard of the Institute has kept falling, with student numbers at an all-time low,’ a sad-looking staff member stated.
The uncertainty surrounding the renewal of contracts has left many workers in limbo, unsure of how to plan their future. The lack of clarity from the administration has only exacerbated the already tense situation on the Greenhill campus.
They are calling on the Ministry of Education and the government to bring the Rector and the Council Chair to order to avert an imminent crisis at the Institute.
By Amos Appiah-Menka
