The fate of an estimated 5, 000 foreign tourists expected to arrive in the country for the Pan African Historical and Cultural Festival (PANAFEST) scheduled for July 23 remains in the balance, as workers of the Ghana Museums and Monuments Board (MMB) threaten to lay down their tools.
Tourists, mostly from the Diaspora are expected to start to start arriving early July to participate in the weeklong biennial festival, which was launched in 1994 as a platform to rediscover the African civilisation.
Last Tuesday, angry workers of the Board were captured on national television pouring out their grievances and by Wednesday there were signals that they would embark on a full-scale industrial action if their grievances were not addressed. The workers representatives gave government the end of June to put a better deal on the table or risk closure of the slave monuments, which are major attraction to foreign tourists.
John K. Addai, Conservation Technician of MMB and Vice Chairman of the Central Committee of MMB Workers' Union told Weekend Agenda that the Cape Coast and Elmina Castles alone earn ?100 million a month for the government. According to statistics from the Ministry of Tourism, last year tourism earned close to $400 million and is course to become the economy's second largest exchange earner in the next five years.
But with industrial actions, like the one on the cards of the aggrieved workers it remains to be seen how the government would achieve the revenue targets envisaged by the ministry. The Ministry of Tourism earns almost 90 percent of its revenue from entrance fees to historic sites. Incidentally, all the museums and monuments in the country belong to the MMB.
The MMB comes under the control of the National Media Commission, which reports directly to the presidency. But according to the workers their grievances have often gone unattended to. John Addai explained that the industrial strife borders on the extra duty allowances meant for staff that work on weekends and holidays, which are the peak periods for tourists.
He said the allowances were initially pegged at 75 percent of the basic salary of workers, but for reasons unknown to them the allowances were slashed to 15 percent of basic salary at the beginning of the year. Overall, he said MMB's budget on allowances have been slashed by 58 percent by the Ministry of Finance.
According to Addai the budget cut was drastic that only 600,000 cedis every three months is provided for the entire workforce of 400. This brings the total to 200, 000 cedis for 400 workers a month. He alleged that the Ministry of Finance further directed that MMB workers be paid the cash equivalent of 10,500 cedis per gallon of petrol, when a gallon of petrol is selling at 20,000 cedis.
"Our salaries are so low that we do not want to talk about them now", says Addai. Grace Arhin, has been working as receptionists at MMB since 1976. She claims to date, her salary is less than 300,000 cedis. Her husband died in 1994, leaving her with five children to care for. "Paying school fees has become difficult for me. For me the allowances makes a lot of difference in the life of my family", says the widow.
The workers also claim that in their negotiations with the Ministry of Finance, Dr. Alhassan Wahab, Policy Analysis Director (PAD) told them the ministry could not do anything about the slash in allowances and asked them to instead reduce their movements. 'To us Dr Wahab's statement means that we should reduce the number of working days, which we feel is not in the interest of the economy", says Addai.
Several calls to the office of Dr Wahab to get his side of the story proved futile. At press time on Wednesday Dr. Wahab had not responded to message to call back.
According to Addai the slash in allowances and poor remuneration is just a gist of the deplorable conditions of services they work under. He said moral is so low that 50 percent of the senior staff trained adored have left the Board.
The physical environment is even more demoralising, according to the workers. A structure, which was expected to be the main display centre, whose foundation was laid in 1966, is still at the foundation level, says Addai. He charges that since the overthrow of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, no successive government has paid any attention to the museums and historical endowments of the country.
Addai says in this year's budget, as in the previous ones no allocation was made for the restoration of forts and castles and other historic sites that attract tourists.
He said the MMB has survived on the generosity of the Smithsonian Institute of the United States of America and the Dutch and the Japanese Governments. Some of the workers recalled that in 1990 the only film making equipment donated to the MMB by the Japanese Government was confiscated by the National Commission on Culture and given to the 31 December Women's Movement. They later leant that movement used the equipment in the production of "By the Fireside', a documentary for children.
"To date the MMB does not have video making equipment to document our festivals and other cultural activities as the Japanese had intended the equipment to be used", laments Addai. He says the Japanese had promised to make more donations, but backtracked when the MMB was denied use of the equipment.
"We have neglected our culture such that it has to take the support of foreign donors to maintain ours forts and castles", adds Addai.
