Ombudsman faults govt administrators

EPHRAIM KEORENG
Staff Writer | Thursday April 16, 2009 00:00

His concern comes in the wake of a report he received concerning a security officer working at the Office of the President. The officer had a medical condition and his doctor recommended that he works day shifts only.

'His superiors took exception to the shift recommendation and for that matter not with the doctor, but rather with the patient.

To be more precise, the officer was told to make a choice between his continued employment or to leave. If he left his employment, him and his family would be doomed to suffer.

If he continued with his employment along the lines suggested, he would not be able to perform properly due to his medical condition,' the Ombudsman says in his report.The Ombudsman followed up the matter and learnt that the security officer's supervisors even tried to have him declared unfit for duty.

The report states that the action was extremely harsh and an attempt 'to avoid dealing with prior wrongful administrative action.

In other words, the issue was not the complainant's inability to perform his duties but rather the inadvisability to perform his duties and the inadvisability of working night shifts for reasons stated in the recommendation (by the doctor)'.

After the intervention of the Ombudsman, the officer was later redeployed to work day shifts.