Sunyani Assembly sacks 72 casual workers

The Sunyani Municipal Assembly has explained that 72 casual workers who have been asked to go home effective August 7th 2017, and reapply for consideration, are not National Democratic Congress (NDC) members but staff of the assembly who were hired temporarily.

Some 72 members of the assembly, including city guards, cleaners and other departmental workers who were hired and paid from its (assembly’s) Internally Generated Fund (IGF), were yesterday presented with letters to stop work from 7th August.

Some of the workers who were not happy with the decision, have gone to radio stations in the Brong-Ahafo Region to claim that they had been sacked because they were employed by the immediate past NDC administration.

However, explaining the rationale behind the decision of the assembly, the Public Relations Officer (PRO), Edwin Kofi Darkey, told DAILY GUIDE that the assembly did not want to go against the labour laws of the country and be taken on. He said the law says causal workers are not to work with an organization for more than six months, saying if a worker continues to draw salary for seven months or more, he or she automatically becomes a permanent worker and can take the organization on.

Asked if some of the workers had not worked more than a year with the assembly, he said “what was wrong yesterday cannot be right today.”

More so, he said when the sacked workers were employed, they were made to understand in their appointment letters that the assembly has the right to terminate their appointment as and when it becomes necessary, or when the assembly is in financial difficulty.

According to him, nobody was employed in the name of any political party and so cannot say they are NDC workers.