Tema Shipyard workers demand dismissal of MD

Senior and Junior Staff Association of PSC Tema Shipyard Limited have passionately appealed to President John Dramani Mahama to personally intervene to impress upon the Managing Director (MD) of the company, Mr. HRT Ali Tunde, to resign from his post.

The aggrieved workers also called on the president to completely dissolve the board of the company (PSC Tema Shipyard Limited) as the best way out to make the company survive.

Consequently, the workers gave President Mahama a 14-day ultimatum to fire the embattled Mr. Ali Tunde as well as dissolve the board of PSC Tema Shipyard Limited or else they will “advise” themselves again.

This was part of a resolution following a massive demonstration by thousands of the workers of PSC Tema Shipyard Limited in Tema yesterday.

The demonstrators chanted war songs during the peaceful walk, holding placards with inscriptions such as “dissolve Tema Shipyard board; Shipyard workers are in serious economic hardship due to board bad policies; customers are running from Shipyard; no salary increment for the past three years; from frying pan to fire and Mr. Ali Tunde must go now,” among others.

Speaking in an interview with Today, the workers union of Tema Shipyard complained that the company yard has now become a graveyard.

According to them, the MD, together with board members, have brought the company to a very “hopeless” state, a situation which has made the company cash-trap.

Thus, they called on President Dramani Mahama to save the company from collapsing.

Speaker-after-speaker stated that there had not been any serious work since 2013 when Mr. Ali Tunde took office due to some policies they described as “hard killer policies.”

In a seventeen paragraph letter to the Minister of Transport, Mr. Fifi Fiavi Kwettey, datedWednesday May 3, 2016 the workers described the current performance of PSC Tema Shipyard, under the stewardship of Mr. Ali Tunde, as “woeful.”

The letter, which is in possession of Today, went on to state that Mr. Ali Tunde has purchased a brand new Toyota Land cruiser V8 for himself at a cost of US$106.000 in connivance with his head of finance who is not qualified to authorise the payment of such amount.

It continued that the MD also renovated and has expanded the Chief Executive Officer’s (CEO’s) office and has moved in, leaving his own office vacant.

The letter also makes reference to earlier letters which were sent to the Ministry of Transport on April 28, 2015, and September 4, 2015, which demanded Mr. Ali to tender in his resignation letter to the Ministry of Transport.

But, his resignation letter was rejected by the board chairman and was asked to resume office.

“Today, the Tema Shipyard is cash-trap, only surviving on deposits from clients. The shipyard has no money of its own,” stated the letter.

For his part, Chairman of the Senior Staff Association of PSC Tema Shipyard, Mr. Michael Ofori Frimpong, told Today that “we cannot dress and come and sit at the shipyard without working.

“But MD, Mr. Ali, told us we are being paid for coming to work without working and is not our problem,” Mr. Frimpong noted.

When contacted by Today to seek clarification on the matter, Mr. Ali Tunde simply said: “I cannot comment on the issue now.”

Meanwhile, Today can confirm that the Secretary of the Senior Staff Association of PSC Tema Shipyard, Samuel Ayensu and Chairman of the Association, Michael Ofori Frimpong, were yesterday given dismissal letters.

The paper learnt that the company took the action following the two senior staff’s participation in the protest.