Vodafone massively lays off workers

Credible information available to The Herald, indicates that telecom giant, Vodafone Ghana, less than four months into the year, has laid off between 1500 to 2000, employees.

The reason is not farfetched as according to insiders, the sudden move is as a result of a major decision to sell the company to a yet to be revealed buyer, years after the mother company, controversially bought Ghana Telecom (GT), under the erstwhile John Kufuor’s administration.

Vodafone has 70 percent shares, while the remainder is for government of Ghana. The 70 percent-stake was acquired at a cost of $900 million under the Kufuor’s administration.

The deal, which was heavily criticized by many Ghanaians, including the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Minority in Parliament, was completed in August 2008, few months to the then government’s exit from power.

Less than 10 years after the acquisition, a good number of the workers, have been sent home, even though at the time, the opposition warned the workers and they were told it wasn’t going to happen, because the sale was in their interest.

But the government at the time, argued that it was necessary, because the economy was in dire need of the money.

Sources say affected workers, have already been written to and compensated with severance packages given to them for the number of years they served the company.

It is the biggest layoffs since its inception almost 10 years ago in the country.

In 2012 and 2009 immediately after the purchase, there were similar layoffs, but it was not as massive as this, this paper has gathered.

According to sources close to management, the huge number of layoff, became necessary because they want the company’s balance sheets to look good to the potential buyers.

The number of people going home it is said, constitute 40 percent of Vodafone’s total number of employees in the country