MoH Holds HR Hearing

Participants in a group photograph

IN ORDER to improve the implementation of the Human Resource (HR) budget of government health agencies, the Ministry of Health (MoH), has held a two-day workshop for agency heads to discuss various aspects of the HR budget.

The workshop, attended by regional heads of the Ghana Health Service, (GHS) heads of government hospitals and health training institutions, was to review the 2012 budget for HR, make amendments where there are gaps and project for the 2013 budget.

It was also to offer orientation for agency heads and training for HR managers on data collection tools.

Sylvester Anemana, Chief Director of MoH, said the workshop was to ensure constructive budgeting, especially in the HR department of government health agencies, as the ministry plans for its budget for 2013.

Giving the rational for the HR workshop, the Chief Director said the budget was currently not being implemented hence the workshop to look at the budget for the current year, analyze the situation and then based on that, plan for the ensuing year.

'So the purpose is for us to look at how well have we managed the implementation of the 2012 human resource budget and what are we actually planning for 2013,' he said.

He said 90 to 95 percent of the budget allocated to the health sector by government was used for staff salaries and therefore must be carefully monitored to avoid misuse.

He said the workshop would also address some weaknesses in the budget which results in some losses to government.

'People normally disengage from our employment, either they go on retirement, resign, or die and the salaries continue to go. The managers are not taking the names of such people from the payroll and this result in some losses to government,' he said.

The Chief Director also stated that the issue of recruiting people for other reasons which normally did not improve services provided would also be looked at.

'We want to make sure that we agree on the numbers that we will be recruiting for next year so all can go into the budget cost for 2013,' he said.

  By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri