Going on radio, TV during working hours 'labour law violation' – Group to govt appointees

A group calling itself Volta Platform for Peace and Development has described “the daily appearance of government employees on radio and TV” to get engaged in discussions with political opponents “during working hours as a serious violation” of the Labour Law, 2003 (Act 651).

In a statement released by the group on Friday, 7 February 2020, it noted that the fight against corruption in Ghana “has suddenly become a lost battle under the presidency of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and his corrupt family-and-friends appointees.”

According to the group, “Reports and videos emerging from President Akufo-Addo's assigns, stealing and selling of 500 excavators and other booty (gold, cars, guns, generators etc.) from illegal mining ('galamsey') operations, and diverting such proceeds into private and NPP party coffers is the clearest evidence yet of the miserable state of our Republic in our fight against graft and impunity.”

According to the group, it is compelled to “draw the attention of Ghanaians to another dimension of corruption, and wanton impunity, which has become endemic” in the Volta Region.

The said development, the group said, “has to do with the appearance of government workers (public/civil servants) who double as NPP communicators on daytime radio and TV during working hours while being paid” with taxpayers’ money and emphasised that “it is instructive that the NPP, as a party, understand the fine distinctions of their roles as political activists from their day jobs.”

The group said it would provide a list of a number of such NPP communicators who double as public/civil servants who engage in this “infraction and violation of our labour laws with impunity”.

The group added that the NPP, upon assuming office on 7 January 2017, invited “known operatives of their rival political parties” through “officialdom and cautioned against their appearance on radio and TV during working hours for their political parties”.

“The invitation of seven (7) government workers within Ho by the Volta Regional Minister, Dr Archibald Yao Letsa on Monday, 3 February 2020, over adverse comments he claimed they made about him and the NPP in the public space, and cautioning them against a repeat of same, is testament to our assertion above.”