Parliament has attributed the delay in the payment of MPs research assistants to anomalies in their qualifications.
The MP's research assistants have been working for the past eleven(11) months but have not received any form of remuneration.In accordance with this, they petitioned the parliamentary service over a decision to demonstrate next week.
Speaking to Starr FM, the Director for Public Affairs for Parliament, Kate Addo explains that the delays in salaries are as a result of discrepancies, anomalies in the qualifications of the assistants. She said parliament is making the necessary efforts to pay MP's research assistants. She added that some of the research assistants have not undertaken national service.
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''Parliament is making the necessary efforts to get the necessary releases so that they can be paid but the finance department says there are issues posing as problems. Amongst them are, they were not employed at the same time, there are discrepancies in qualifications. You have first degree and second-degree holders doing the same thing so there are differences in remuneration''.
''More worrying is the fact that some people who have not done their national service at all. These people are also included in the list and there are those who are also doing their national service now. The requirement is you should have completed your national service and presented your certificate. So these issues are giving us few bureaucratic challenges which are been resolved''.
Background
Research Assistants to the 275 lawmakers of the country have announced it will embark on a demonstration on June 20, 2019, in protest for non-payment of salaries.
The planned demonstration, according to the aggrieved Research Assistants, will take place at the forecourt of the Parliament House.
In a statement issued on Friday, June 14, 2019, directed to the Speaker of Parliament, Representatives of the Research Assistants explained: "this action has become necessary because we have exploited every diplomatic avenue at our disposal but all attempts have proven futile."
The research assistants were engaged in July 2017 but had their appointment letters in July 2018 and are yet to receive their first salary. Their appointment is on a contract basis depending on the tenure of the MP they have been assigned to.
However, they have been refused salaries for the past eleven months, hence their decision to embark on the demonstration.