Take severance package and quit – Agyarko tells ECG staff

The Minister for Energy, Boakye Agyarko, has told staff of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) demanding severance package as part of the company’s concession agreement to be prepared to leave their posts upon receipt of the package.

His comments come in the wake of protests by staff of the company Wednesday in the Eastern region in demand of their package.

At an emergency meeting held at the Eastern regional Office of ECG, the Local Chairman of Public Utility Workers Union (PUWU), Abraham Lincoln said if government has decided to put ECG on Concession and leverage some ECG staff to a new – Company, then there is the need for a severance package to be paid for the staff per the Labour Act.

But in his reaction at a presser Wednesday, Mr. Agyarko said, “…If you decide to leave ECG, then you will be paid your severance, but you should not have the expectation or guarantee that the new company will take you on.

“You have made a decision to sever your relations with ECG, and it should not put you in faithful expectation that going forward you have a job with the new company. So it is opened, all the ECG workers who want to leave and not join the new company are at liberty to do so and their severance so arranged.”

“But it is not going to be a collective bargaining situation where all 6,500 ECG workers are paid the severance and then transferred to the new company. You are at liberty to transfer yourself to the new company and carry with you all the benefits from ECG and continue accruing new benefits. You are equally at liberty to say that I want to wash my hands off ECG and go my own way,” he added.