Chinese Ordered To Remove Dogs

The GHUMCo building

DAILY GUIDE has gathered that personnel of the Ghana Immigration Service have invited the factory manager of Ghana Household Utilities Manufacturing Company (GHUMCo) for questioning on his alleged human right abuses of some Ghanaian workers of the company. 9

GHUMCo manufactures metallic cooking utensils and household items, and it is owned and operated by Chinese nationals.

The workers asserted that they were being forced to apologize to dogs belonging to the factory manager whose name was only given as Mr Zhu, a Chinese national.

The workers alleged that they were forced to write apology letters to the dogs instead, failure of which would lead to their dismissal.  They lamented that there was no compensation paid to injured workers.

They also bemoaned the poor safety measures at the factory, poor salaries coupled with long working hours without benefits, among others.

According to sources, the Chinese national is also being investigated on some initiatives he had taken against the workers which breached the country’s labour laws.

Meanwhile, the Department of Factory Inspectorate in Western Region in Takoradi has ordered the Chinese national to remove the dogs that had allegedly been biting the workers of the company from the factory premises within seven days. 9

This was after the Regional Inspector of Factories, B.Y. Frimpong and the Western Regional Industrial Relations Coordinator for the Industrial and Commercial Workers Union (ICU), Peter Djan, visited the factory premises.

According to Mr Djan, the visit revealed that the dogs were kept at a small place within the factory and that the animals were used to ensure security at the factory even though security men had been employed.

He indicated that looking at the distance between where the workers operated and where the wild dogs were kept; it was possible that the workers might suffer dog bites.

A statement issued by the Factory Inspectorate and signed by the Regional Inspector of Factories indicated that the presence of the dogs on the premises of the factory made it unsafe as per regulation on safe workplace.

It would be recalled that there was a gas explosion on the premises of the company on May 9, 2017, which injured some workers and residents in the area close to 180.

The explosion occurred when a gas tanker was discharging gas on the premises close to the Total Filling Station on the main Takoradi-Sekondi Highway.

 

From Emmanuel Opoku, Takoradi