Women in the utility sector take stock of activities

The second Quadrennial Delegates’ Conference of the National Women’s Committee of the Public Utility Workers Union (PUWU) of the Ghana Trades Union Congress (TUC), has commenced in Kumasi with a call on the utility companies to provide enabling environment for women to upgrade themselves.

Dr Esther Offei-Aboagye, Director of the Institute of Local Government Studies (ILGS) said they should be supported to undertake refresher courses to bolster their capacity and competency for efficient service delivery.

The utility sector, she said, could perform as expected to satisfy the ever increasing demands of customers as well as technological advancement of the sector if the staff, particularly women, who represented a vital human resource of those companies were equipped with the requisite skills to meet those challenges.

This would go a long way to engender stronger worker-customer relationship and also strengthen the confidence and trust the latter had in those companies.

The two-day programme is being held under the theme: “The Role of Women in Efficient and Reliable Service Delivery in the Utility Sector.”

It aims to give the women in the utility sector the platform to assess their own contribution to service delivery.

It was also designed to conscientise and re-orient the participants to play a critical role in women activism at their work places and also contribute effectively to issues in respect of the labour front and trade unionism.

Dr Offei-Aboagye indicated that water, power and housing were essential to the progress of mankind.

It therefore behooved on the women to approach their work with a high sense of integrity, commitment and honesty to benefit the nation.

Ms Naomi Dedei Otoo, Chairperson of the Committee, advised her colleagues to take deliberations at the conference seriously to ensure that they performed as expected of them.**