Breweries: Over 1500 workers to be laid off in October

The General Secretary for the Food and Beverages Manufacturers Association, Samuel Aggrey, has revealed that over 1500 staff of the various breweries in the country will be laid off by the end of October.

According to Mr. Aggrey, over 1200 workers have already been laid off due to the economic hardships currently facing the country and the various taxes introduced by the Akufo-Addo led government.

Speaking on the Morning Starr Monday, Mr. Aggrey told host Francis Abban said “It didn’t start from now, it started early part of this year, some companies have already laid off their staff and others have even shut down some of their plants completely.”

Mr. Aggrey added that “some supermarkets have laid off staff and all that…and we told government that the way we are going we have to be very careful because if you stifle people with more taxes and once you doing that it will create a big problem.

“I know about a company that shut down its whole plant and it affected 1200 workers…this happened somewhere in April.”

He further revealed that some big factories in the brewery industry in Ghana will soon lay off more workers due to government’s handling of the implementation of the tax stamp policy.

“Take the number of productions lines that we have or the factories and then look at the big lines that they produce, what it means is that if you don’t have about 1,500 layoffs then it could be more. Because even those producing about 5000 are not breaking even…but you see if you have a government that is not listening to the industry this is what happens.”