Mr. William Amuna, acting Chief Executive of the Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCO), has rallied the workers to do more to improve the quality of service to meet the expectations of power consumers. He said there was the need to ensure that inefficiencies were removed.
Mr. Amuna said this in an address read for him at the opening of the second quadrennial delegates’ congress of the company’s divisional union of the Public Services Workers’ Union (PWSU) in Kumasi.
The four-day congress is under the theme, “Towards an effective and efficient power transmission: the role of the union”. He said those in the power sector should take criticisms from the public in good faith, adding that, it must invigorate them to achieve appreciable level of efficiency.
He called for mutual cooperation and understanding between the management and the staff because they both shared the responsibility of working to make things happen. Their goal is “to create the electric grid of the future with zero electric outages”, Mr. Amuna said.
Ms. Georgina Opoku-Agyemang, National Chairperson of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), urged the workers to exhibit high sense of professionalism in the discharge of their duties.
She also encouraged the utility providers to act together with the National Commission for Civic Education (NCCE) to engage in public education programmes that would aid the people to appreciate their operational challenges.
This could help to overcome the usual misunderstanding that come with tariff increases. Mr. Richard Ampaabeng, National Chairman of the PSWU, advised the use of dialogue to resolve industrial disputes. He suggested that all stakeholders sat to discuss the way out of the increases in electricity and water charges which was creating so much tension.
Mr. Samuel Buer-Oheme, the Divisional Union Chairperson, encouraged the management to focus on routine equipment maintenance, health and safety standards.