Ports and Harbours ex-workers call for government’s intervention

Some Workers of the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA) who were retrenched in 2002 have appealed to government to intervene to ensure that they were properly catered for.

They have also called on the Management of the Ghana Ports and Harbours to open another opportunity for some conversations that could bring mutual benefits.

A statement signed by Mr Stephen Ashitey Adjei, leader of the workers and copied to the Ghana News Agency on Tuesday said the retrenchment had brought about misery and discomfort to families of the affected employees.

The statement said the late President John Evans Atta Mills allegedly agreed to pay the ex-workers, but their joy and jubilations fizzled out, when the former President passed and called on the current administration to take a second look at their plight.

The statement said the aggrieved ex-workers were over 3,000 and blamed former President Mahama for allegedly ignoring a process that late President Mills had started to pay them their unpaid severance benefits in 2012 after Prof. Mills suddenly died in office.

In 2002, the GPHA ex-workers were sent home in a retrenchment exercise without their severance benefits.

They later approached the GPHA and demanded payments of their benefits, but that was not to be.

This led to agitation with leader of the ex-workers, Stephen Ashitey Adjei, petitioning a number of institutions including; Parliament before the ex-workers were constrained to go to court.

The statement said only five people were paid out of over 3,000 ex-workers of GPHA due to many procedural mistakes.

At the last hearing by the Supreme Court, Chief Justice Georgina Theodora Wood, who had presided expressed unhappiness about counsel for plaintiff’s long streak of procedural errors. Before she dismissed the case on grounds of procedural errors, the Chief Justice allegedly asked the GPHA to sit down with the ex-workers and work out a package for them.

The statement alleged that late President Mills ordered the Ministry of Transport to sit down with them to resolve the issue, unfortunately after his death nothing fruitful was done.

Meanwhile, speaking to the Ghana News Agency in an interview a couple of weeks ago on the same issue, Madam Esther Gyebi-Donkor, General Manager of Marketing and Corporate Affairs said the case went through all the court procedures and a verdict was ultimately given.

“A verdict was given and I do not want to be cited for contempt of court, so many years after the verdict.”