Emmanuel Boakye Agyarko
Energy Minister Emmanuel Boakye Agyarko says workers of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), who intend to resign their posts in the company voluntarily, must write to management for their severance packages to be arranged for them.
Speaking at a press conference yesterday in Accra, Mr Boakye Agyarko indicated: “If you decide to leave ECG, then you will be paid the severance but you should not have the expectation or guarantee that the new company will take you on. You have made a decision to sever your relationship with the ECG and it should not put you in a faithful expectation that going forward you have a job with the new company.
“So it is open. All the ECG workers who want to leave and not join the new company are at liberty to do so and their severance so arranged, but it is not going to be a collective bargaining situation where all the 6,500 workers of ECG are paid severance and then transferred to new company,” he said.
The statement of the minister indicates that government has rejected demands by the ECG workers for a severance package before a new company takes over management of the utility firm.
Abraham Lincoln, Eastern Region Chair of the Public Utility Workers Union (PUWU), insisted that the workers’ demands were appropriate and that they would continue to press home their demand.
The workers, who were clad in red attire and wielded placards, on Tuesday, demanded their severance package before the new company takes over the management of the firm.
But reacting to government’s stance, Mr Lincoln said government could continue policies initiated by the previous administration, some of which include the Millennium Development Authority’s privatization of the ECG.
He referred to Section 65 subsection 2 of the Labour Act, which indicated that if the workers were going to be put on secondment for the next 20 years under a new company, they should be given severance packages by ECG.
The takeover has become necessary in view of the Millennium Challenge Power Compact agreement programme signed between Government of Ghana and the United States government.
Ghana would be entitled to $469,300,000 should the new management takeover the affairs of ECG.
By Samuel Boadi