ALPHONSE KLU v. YOUTH EMPLOYMENT AGENCY

ACKAH-YENSU (MS.) JSC:-

INTRODUCTION

This is an appeal against the Judgment of the Court of Appeal dated 23rd July, 2021. The Appellant (Plaintiff/Appellant/Appellant) commenced an action at the High Court, HO on 12th October 2017 against the Youth Employment Agency (Defendant/Respondent/Respondent) for the following reliefs:

“i. An order directed at the Defendant to pay the Plaintiff all his outstanding salary arrears from January 2013 to date.

ii. An order of the Honourable Court directed at the Defendant to migrate the name of the Plaintiff onto the service pay roll as required by law.”

The Appellant’s claim was dismissed at the trial court. He also lost an appeal at the Court of Appeal.

BACKGROUND AND FACTS

The Youth Employment Agency was formed in 2005 to manage the National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP) that was meant to address the problem of unemployment among the youth, perceived to be a potential threat to National Security. The Agency operated directly under the Ministry of Youth and Sports, but a decision was taken in 2012 to make it an autonomous agency as a Public Service Organisation. However, the Agency still had no statutory foundation until February 2015, when the Youth Employment Agency Act 2015, (Act 887) was enacted. After that, a Legislative Instrument, Youth Employment Agency Regulations 2016, (L.I. 2231) was passed and gazetted to complete the legal establishment of the Agency as a corporate entity.

In the course of the transition from being an agency under the Ministry to becoming an autonomous corporation, various personnel were taken along and when the Act establishing the Agency as a distinct legal entity was passed, the management decided to formally engage the old workers on permanent basis through a process whereby they would be migrated on to the pay roll of the new entity as permanent staff. The Appellant herein was one of the old workers with the Agency in its earlier formative years and naturally expected that he would be migrated to the new organization as a permanent worker, but this did not happen. So, in October 2017 he took out a writ in the High Court Ho, against the Defendant/Respondent/Respondent (the Respondent) praying for the reliefs aforementioned.

At the trial High Court, the Appellant claimed that he was employed by the Respondent in 2010 and stationed at Hohoe as the Deputy Employment Officer. That, from January 2013 up to the date of the final judgment at the trial court, he had not been paid