Scores of litigants were stranded at the Ho court complex on Wednesday as they were denied entry into the yard following organised labour’s demonstration.
This caused congestion at the main gate of the court with vehicles parked at the entrance. Some suspects being escorted by Prison Officers were also locked outside.
A security man at the court told the Ghana News Agency (GNA) that the Court Administrator had warned that the gate should not be opened to anyone.
Pleas by litigants that they were going in only to take new dates for their cases were not accepted.
Some chiefs in a bus heading to the court openly expressed dissatisfaction about having to go back without entering the court premises, chastising the workers for going on demonstration.
The Judicial Service Workers Union had issued a statement informing the public that Courts in the country would not work on Wednesday because of the demonstration.
Meanwhile, the Organised Labour demonstration in the Region was successful with some 400 workers clad in red taking to the streets.
Some of their placards read, “Ghana this?,” “We are dying slowly”, Utility bills and petrol too high”.
Mr Elvis S. Vanlare, Volta Regional Secretary of the Trade Union Congress (TUC) presented a petition to the President through the Volta Regional Coordinating Council.
He said the demonstration was to bring home to government, in a more forceful manner, the difficulties and the desperate social and economic conditions the utility tariff increases and the new levies and taxes on petroleum have brought to bear on Ghanaians.
The petition among other things asked government to reduce utility tariff increase to 50 per cent and withdraw the Energy Sector Levies Act (Act 899, 2015), “which has occasioned the astronomical and unjustified increases in the prices of petroleum products...”
Alhaji Ibrahim Alhassan, Volta Regional Coordinating Director, received the petition and commended the workers for a “beautiful demonstration.”
