Abena Pokua Boaitey Amoah
Workers of La Palm Royal Hotel, a member of the Golden Beach Hotels, with Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) as the main shareholder, have called for the immediate dismissal of their Managing Director (MD), Abena Pokua Boaitey Amoah, over what they described as “impropriety, high handedness and insensitive decisions.”
The workers, led by the Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union (ICU-Ghana), made the appeal in a petition to the Director-General of SSNIT signed by the General Secretary of ICU, Solomon Kotei.
The petition said “the MD’s “relationship with the workers of the hotel on issues of labour, and her utterances and attitude generally towards the workers of the hotel are not the best, to say the least, and cast a wedge between the entire workforce (junior, senior and management staff alike).”
“This would, naturally, affect productivity, which is why the once famous, profitable and highly esteemed La Palm Royal Hotel, is found in its lowest state as we see it today,” the petition read.
La Palm Royal, a five star hotel, was established in 1999 by SSNIT and an Israeli businessman with shareholding portfolios of 70 percent and 30 percent respectively.
Between 2000 and 2001, SSNIT took full ownership of the hotel.
According to the petition, “The hotel had undergone several transformational changes under 11 different and successive general managers until the appointment of Madam Abena Pokua Boaitey Amoah as the Managing Director.”
“As a matter of fact, and without mincing words, the Managing Director is running down the business of the Hotel i.e La Royal, Elmina Resort and Busua Beach Resort, all of which are under her management with her poor human relations, poor industrial relations and unguarded utterances,” it said.
It added that “she was reported to have told the workers and some management personnel on many occasions that her contributions to the New Patriotic Party largely informed the President’s decision to reward her by appointing her as the Managing Director of the La Palm Royal Hotel, so she can run the hotel as she pleases.”
The workers, in the petition, contended that “she disregards the Labour laws and the Collective Bargaining Agreement which governs the relationship between the workers and management, and arbitrarily runs the hotel on her own terms and at her whims and caprices.”
By Melvin Tarlue