The National Democratic Congress (NDC) says it is committed to ensuring the neutrality of the Civil Service if voted into power on December 7, 2024.

The party said it regarded the Civil Service as the repository of institutional memory and thus would ensure that civil servants were protected from all forms of interference that impeded their work.

The pledge was made when the NDC’s 2024 Manifesto Team met with the Civil and Local Government Staff Association, Ghana (CLOGSAG) in Accra on Thursday.

The meeting formed part of engagements with various professional groups to solicit for policy ideas to feed into the NDC’s 2024 Manifesto.

At the meeting, CLOGSAG expressed concern over political interference of the service, which it said undermined the ability of civil servants to execute their constitutional mandate effectively and without fear or favour.

The Association, therefore, asked the NDC to commit and outline measures to guarantee the neutrality of the Civil Service in the party’s 2024 Manifesto.

A member of the NDC’s Manifesto Team, Augustus Goosie Tanoh, said the party believed in the capacity of the Civil Service to deliver on its mandate in the national interest and assured that a future NDC government would ensure the neutrality of civil servants.

He said the party would also improve the conditions of service of civil servants and ensure their full participation in the formulation of government policies.

“Politicians and governments come and go, but the institutional memory of government resides in the Civil Service. So every government must have as one of its principal considerations the improvement of that Service both in term of its capacity, innovative power, ability to respond to the public, integrity and conditions of service.

“Those are key components you will see in our manifesto,” Mr Tanoh said.

“In our new dispensation to serve Ghana, we will go back to our history of ensuring that workers have the voice in policy making and implementation,” he added.

Executive Secretary of CLOGSAG, Isaac Bampoe Addo, said infiltration of the civil service by political actors affected the work of civil servants.

“There should be something in your manifesto that when the NDC comes to power, they will uphold the principles of permanent neutrality. It is very dear to us,” he said.

The CLOGSAG asked the NDC to review the current decentralisation structure and build a workable decentralisation system that would ensure the independence of local government.

Touching on pensions, the Association asked the NDC to develop a plan to build economic reserves to cover 2027 and 2028 and cautioned that the economy could collapse during that period if such reserves were not created.

He also urged the NDC team to prioritise the conditions of service of civil servants and address shortfalls in the pension scheme.