Mounting tension at the Ghana Dock Labour Company (GDLC) at the Tema Port over alleged misappropriation of workers welfare funds attracted the attention of the director general of the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA), Richard Anamoo, who is the chairman of the company’s board of directors, when he stormed the company’s premises last Friday.
A highly agitated dockworker who spoke to DAILY GUIDE on condition of anonymity said Mr Amamoo, who was accompanied by a high-powered entourage of port officials and police officers, sought to calm down tensions at the hurriedly arranged meeting.
But the workers were of the view that the problem was not being properly addressed to their satisfaction, hence their decision to mount red flags as a warning to the authorities, before they advised themselves.
It is believed that the chairman of the board had to step in because of the deep mistrust between the newly-appointed executive director of the company, Mark Boafo and the workers.
Mr. Boafo, until his appointment, was the first national trustee of the Maritime and Dockworkers Union (MDU) of the TUC and also a board member representing the MDU.
It is alleged that his appointment was politically engineered to get him out of the race for the post of MDU general secretary, so as to increase the chances of Eben Narteh Mensah, brother of E.T. Mensah, Minister for Water Resources, Works and Housing.
Mr. Narteh Mensah lost to Owusu Koranteng at the keenly contested elections held during the MDU delegates conference at Windy Bay Hotel in Winneba last month
“He is part of the problem,” the angry worker said.
“Instead of asking the MDU headquarters to refund the money, they say the local union is to pay by deductions. How can they chop our money and then they deduct our own contributions to pay it back? How can they take our welfare funds for AIDS workshop when the Ghana Aids Commision has given MDU money to cover the workshop as a project? Go and check from the Aids Commission. We no go sit down make them cheat us like that,” said another angry-looking dockworker.
The workers alleged that an important observation by the auditors of the Welfare Fund, Messrs Accounting Associates of Tema, had been ignored by the management of GDLC.
They called for an explanation for a cheque paid into the welfare fund account from Gold Coast Securities Ltd, an investment company- a 21st December, 2009 Barclays Bank cheque for GH¢60,000 issued by Gold Coast Securities.
Also unexplained are the purpose and payee of two separate cheque withdrawals made in July 2007 and September 2007- GH¢ 50,000 and GH¢15,000 respectively.
The workers expressed disappointment at the Ghana TUC for not acting on their May 2010 petition, which they said was hand-delivered to the secretary general, Kofi Asamoah at the TUC Headquarters in the presence of Togbe Adom Drayi II and Seth Abloso.
They argued that even though all the union dues they had been paying over the years went direct to the MDU, so long as the MDU was part of TUC, the secretary general should have responded to their petition.
“If the MDU is denying TUC of any part of our union dues, does it mean that the secretary general should refuse to talk our matter for us, is TUC not for all workers?”
