Akufo-Addo must crack the whip on GPHA delay tactics - Ex-Workers

Over 4,000 ex-workers of the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA), retrenched in 2002 without severance benefits, have urged President Nana Akufo-Addo to take punitive action against the leadership of GPHA for failing to comply with his directive to pay them.

The President had issued the directive in August 2023.

Speaking to this reporter, the leader of the aggrieved ex-workers, Stephen Ashitey Adjei, described GPHA’s non-compliance as a deliberate act of defiance against the President's orders.

"Such recalcitrance must not be entertained because, if allowed, it will establish a precedent that is absolutely unhealthy for governance in our country," he emphasised.

The ex-workers called on President Akufo-Addo to "crack the whip and ensure consequences for those who have dared to defy the leader of the people."

The statement highlighted the GPHA’s failure to pay the retrenched workers their severance benefits, despite the President's directive in August last year. Since their retrenchment in 2002, over 4,000 workers remain unpaid, although five of their colleagues somehow received payment.

"If this defiance is allowed to stand, it will be the second time that GPHA has gotten away with such disrespectful behaviour, and so the President must crack the whip," Mr. Ashitey Adjei reiterated.

According to him, "discipline is good for the soul," adding, "even Jesus cracked the whip when the people got way too out of line."

Mr. Ashitey Adjei further recalled a similar incident in 2012 when GPHA ignored a directive from then-President John Evans Atta Mills to pay the ex-workers. Following Mills’ sudden death, his successor, former President John Mahama, failed to execute the directive.

“GPHA cannot be absolved of blame,” Mr. Ashitey Adjei argued. “This is because GPHA retrenched us in 2002 and paid just five out of over 4,000 of us. The GPHA could have fought for us to ensure that Mr. John Mahama carried through with President Mills’ directive.”

The ex-workers maintain that GPHA’s persistent disregard for presidential orders undermines governance and calls for firm action to prevent a repetition of such defiance.