ICU hints at redundancies amidst fears of power crisis

The Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union (ICU) has said that worries over stable power for production in the early part of 2017 could force companies to lay off workers.

The Africa Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP) and other energy experts have predicted unstable power supply due to interruption in the supply of gas, but the ICU has said any such occurrences would lead to loss of jobs.

ICU General Secretary Solomon Kotei said: “Obviously we are even going to see some redundancies again, obviously we will not be able to negotiate again, obviously production levels are also going to drop and this should be giving way for the external competitors to be bringing in cheap and used products and that will overshadow the internal factories’ production”.

The Africa Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP) and other civil societies in the energy sector have threatened an imminent power crisis citing gas insecurity for the first quarter of this year. The Power Ministry, however, insists adequate measures have been made to avert any significant distortion to power supply. In the meantime, the Volta River Authority (VRA) has indicated there will be a 15- day interruption in gas supply from February and the month of March 2017.

The Power Ministry has allayed any fears of energy crisis but the ICU maintains that such a situation will cripple Ghanaian industries.

“No country develops without its own industry moving up and taking strategic position and the more this power issue weakens the internal and the Ghanaian-owned industry, then it means that we cannot grow this economy and it’s a very big concern,” he told Citi FM on Monday, January 5.