The Railway Workers Union has bemoaned what it termed ‘unfair treatment’ being meted out to them by the Ghana Railway Development Authority (GRDA).
According to the workers, the GRDA has allegedly taken undue advantage of the Railway Act, Act 779 to perpetrate acts that are detrimental to the survival of Ghana Railway Company Limited (GRCL).
They said they have been complaining about the Railway Act, Act 779, which among other things transfers the assets hitherto under the care of GRCL to GRDA.
“Series of appeals for this Act, to be reviewed, has so far not yielded the desired results,” the union disclosed.
This was contained in a statement issued by the worker’s union and signed by its General Secretary, Goodwill Ntarmah.
They mentioned some activities the GRCL used to undertake which have been taken by the GRDA as supervising and loading of scraps of rails and sleepers into trucks at Kase in the Ashanti Region for sale.
They also mentioned the denying of the GRCL from collecting rents from people operating on railway lands.
“Another issue is the recent directive to take over some bungalows at Kumasi by August 31, 2022 in spite of the fact that officials of GRCL and their families occupy such bungalows,” they stated.
The workers added that currently, the GRCL is heavily indebted to a number of institutions as it sometimes borrows from the banks, and its major client, the Ghana Manganese Company, to effect payment of salaries and purchase of fuel among others.
“If the Ministry of Railways Development does not call GRDA to order and ensure an amicable solution to the challenges, the two passenger services–Accra to Tema and Takoradi to Kojokrom will cease running from Monday, August 22, 2022,” they warned.
They revealed that the GRCL is operating the shuttle service from Accra to Tema and Kojokrom to Takoradi at a loss.
The workers attributed it to the fact that those services are considered more of a social service than a commercial venture.
From Emmanuel Opoku, TakoradiÂ