Dockworkers challenge shipyard counterparts’ claims

The senior staff local union of the Maritime Dockworkers Union (MDU) of PSC Tema Shipyard Limited, which is under the Trades Union Congress (TUC), is challenging claims by the junior staff of Shipyard Limited that it does not protect their interests and welfare.

According to the senior staff, it was rather their professional engagement with the management of PSC Tema Shipyard that is helping to keep that strategic national asset afloat.

The Junior Staff Local Union of the MDU, led by Samuel Attram and Stephen Tetteh Quaye, chairman and secretary respectively, signed a petition last week to the presidency and all sector heads accusing the Tema District Council of the MDU and its general secretary, Daniel Owusu-Koranteng, of backing the CEO of Shipyard, H.R. Tunde Ali, to remain in office.

According to the junior staff, the only way for the shipyard to become effective is for the president to remove the CEO and also for the facility to be handed over to the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA).

However, the Tema District Council of Labour at a news conference last week debunked the claims and backed calls for the government to use a consortium of Ghanaian-owned companies to rescue the stricken PSC Tema Shipyard.

They said a consortium comprising the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority, Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) and Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) – as recommended by a committee in 2009 – could help revive the shipyard and they passionately appealed to the incensed junior staff to send their petition to the presidency.

A counter petition signed by Nicholas N. Kotey and Fuseini Shahamu-deen, secretary and chairman respectively, said they had no doubt that H.R. Tunde Ali and the management of the shipyard were striving to check corruption at the yard.

The senior staff said, “Since he took over the yard, customers do not leave without making full payments as compared to his predecessors where clients owed the company close to $3.5 million and the board had no other option than to write it off as bad debt.”

They said the report of the committee of enquiry into the shortfall of revenue in PSC account on the vessel MT Loulou in November last year as well as the Chris Ackumey report of 2010 had all served as an eye-opener for the management, which the CEO used to the benefit of the shipyard.

They said the bonuses that were not paid to workers last year were as a result of the financial constraints of the yard due to a turbulent financial year.

“One can only say that these allegations are as a result of the suffocation by the stringent security policies introduced by the CEO, making it impossible for people with their parochial interests to divert company assets into their personal coffers. Illegal activities in the yard have been minimized to the barest minimum,” they claimed.

They also insisted that MDU had been very professional in handling issues at the yard and said Mr. Owusu-Koranteng is a man of integrity whose reputation “precedes him wherever he goes.”

“He has always had the plight of workers at heart and it is unfortunate that the newly-elected Junior Staff Local Union of MDU of PSC Tema Shipyard want to bring his name to shame,” they added.

The Senior Staff said their juniors peddled falsehood in their petition when they said their Collective Bargaining Agreement had not been signed since 2013.