Akufo-Addo dissolves GCMC board

President Nana Akufo-Addo has dissolved the board of the Ghana Cylinder Manufacturing Company Limited (GCMC) with immediate effect.

The reason for the dissolution is not immediately clear but the CEO of the GCMC Frances Essiam has been at a crossroads with the board.

It will be recalled that some workers of the company staged a protest in an attempt to prevent the board from removing Ms Essiam.

Clad in red armed bands, the war song chanting workers picketed the premises of the state-owned company to register their displeasure against the board for voting to suspend Ms Essiam, Accra News' Fred Alvis Agbenyo reported on Wednesday, saying: “No Frances, No work’; we cannot afford to lose our jobs, we want Frances, she is doing a good work.”

Some of them told Agbenyo that: “We heard in the news that the Board Chair has suspended our CEO. We want to know what is actually going on. The CEO was appointed by the president and not the Board. All of us are working towards the same goal.”

On Tuesday evening, six of the nine-member board voted in favour of Ms Essiam’s suspension at a meeting held outside the premises of GCMC due to a lock-out on the orders of the embattled CEO, a situation that barred staff of the company from gaining access to their offices when they turned up for work that day.

Among other things, the Board wrote to Ms Essiam asking her to explain why she unilaterally contracted a loan to pay workers’ February salary without the board’s knowledge and approval.

The board also demanded answers from the CEO about why she ordered the sale of a disused machine belonging to the company.

She was restrained by the board from touching a GHS5m stimulus package secured for the company by the government.