Energy Minister asks AGC workers to exercise restraint

Obuasi (Ashanti Region) 19 May ?99

Mr Fred Ohene-Kena, Minister of Mines and Energy has called on striking workers of Ashanti Goldfields Company (AGC) to exercise restraint and wait for the outcome of new negotiations between their union and the AGC management.

Mr Ohene-Kena made the call at a meeting at Obuasi on Monday to find solution to the industrial action by the workers who are demanding pay increases.

The meeting was attended by Mrs. Joana Appiah-Dwomoh, Deputy Ashanti Regional Minister, Brigadier Kofi Anyidoho, second Infantry Brigade Commander, Mr George Adu-Mensah, Adansi West District Chief Executive as well as the management of AGC and union executives.

The Minister advised the workers to always opt for dialogue in resolving industrial matters instead of embarking on strike action.

Mr Ohene-Kena, who is also a member of the company's board of directors asked the workers to consider investments AGC is making in other African countries as long-term profit-making ventures in their interest and appealed to them to see eye to eye with their management in times of crisis.

Mrs. Appiah-Dwomoh assured the workers that the government is sensitive to their plight and that they should resume work while they wait for the outcome of the re-negotiations.

But in spite of the appeals, the striking workers are insisting that they would return to work only when they have been give pay increments.

Miss Adelaide Borden, union secretary, told the workers that the re-negotiations cannot be conducted in an atmosphere of threat and that they should go back to work.

Meanwhile, the strike action took a dramatic turn when wives of the workers took to the streets in solidarity of their husbands.

Dressed in their husbands working gear and wearing red bands, the women sang songs calling on Mr Sam Jonah, chief executive of the AGC to give their husbands the needed pay rise.