Abdul-Moomin Gbana, General Secretary, GMWU
THE GHANA MINEWORKERS’ Union (GMWU) of the Trade Union Congress, Ghana (TUCG) has asked government to as a matter of urgency, take keen interest in ensuring that contracts entered by local mining entities with other multinational companies are not “exploitative, cut-throat and suffocating” to the detriment of local mineworkers and their businesses.
According to the Union’s General Secretary, Abdul-Moomin Gbana, at the second half National Executive Council (NEC) meeting of the Union for the year, they had resolved that it was “particularly important” for government to pay attention to such contract and other prevailing issues.
They said it was due to the capital-intensive nature of mining which involves acquisition of mining fleet, maintenance, labour, etc; as well as challenges associated with access to, and the high cost of credit in Ghana for most of the local mining companies.
At its end of year meeting on developments in the mining industry in Accra on Monday, the union’s General Secretary accused the multinational companies of imposing “cut-throat mining contracts on local entities in order to offload their inefficiencies and further their profiteering agenda under the guise of local content, while their leaders squeeze the local entities and line their pockets with hefty bonuses rather than seek the total interest of all stakeholders.”
The situation where aspects of the mining business are farmed out at the least opportunity under cut-throat contract prices simply on the back of profit maximisation, he noted, must stop since it continues to threaten and undermine the decent work agenda and impoverish its members.
He said “it is not enough for government to just intervene in the mining space by encouraging that mining and hauling be left for local entities as part of local content within the sector. The consequences of these cut-throat and suffocating contract rates are dire, as workers welfare in these local entities are relegated to the background, and this is manifested in several ways including, excessive delays in payment of wages; non-payment of employees’ Provident Fund contributions and terminal gratuities; non-payment of statutory benefits such as pension contributions (1st and 2nd tiers); taxes and protracted negotiation of wages as well as conditions of service for our members.”
“In fact, the current situation for most local entities operating within the mining space is very awful, to say the least, and ought to change without any further delay,” he stressed.
“As a trade union, we take an uncompromising opposition to the current arrangement of ‘monkey dey work baboon dey chop’ and therefore reinforce our position that mining companies must be strictly responsible for the core business of mining including associated employees’ cost, and therefore should not be allowed to farm out the core business that they have a responsibility and obligation under the law to perform,” he added.
By Nii Adjei Mensahfio