Please permit me space in your internationally respected medium to air my sentiments on recent developments in Anglogold Ashanti (AGA) We all witnessed the so called merger of the above companies and a lot has happened since Anglogold took over some two years ago.
Some of the most disturbing phenomenon is the increasing influx of foreign nationals who are gradually taking over key administrative and operational positions which were hitherto handled by Ghanaians A lot of other disturbing occurrences are continuing in the obuasi mine but all can not be said.
We would like the authorities, specifically government who has a great deal of interest in the operations of the company to come over to obuasi to investigate and find out for themselves the state of Anglogold Ashanti. At the moment what the company’s management intend doing double the responsibilities of two workers for each staff and then transfer the “excess” skilled labour to the Pool section. This pool is simply a place where workers who have sustained some levels of disability or injury and do not have the strength to work actively anymore are sent and given light duties. This time they intend sending both senior and junior workers to the pool and this we believe is a mechanisim they are using to frustrate the workers who management claim to be their greatest assets (that’s hypocrisy) especially the senior staff to voluntarily resign instead of management laying such workers redundant and paying them the appropriate benefits. How on earth can a professionally skilled labour be sent to the Pool section and be “made to rot”.
We therefore want to appeal to management do away with the services of skilled manpower if they do not need them rather than rendering them idle at the Pool
Management should remember that other companies require the services of such skilled manpower to help grow their companies. We are ever ready to go for them to take over, others will welcome us.
We don’t want any industrial unrest to engulf the “struggling” AGA as was the case some years back.
So please authorities step in before things get out of hand.
As at now, Anglogold intends buying every material from South Africa and in this has the potential to cripple our local supply industry hence depriving government of local revenue and the suppliers of their livelihood, is this a blessing or a curse? It is only the blessing that the world knows about Anglogold, but I can assure you that their curses are more than the blessings. We strongly oppose Anglogold’s position on the POOL thing. They must give respect to our hard earn certificates. If they don’t need us they must pay us our redundancy benefits and we will leave peacefully. We are confident that the authorities will step in to resolve this.
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