ECG workers in Kumasi continue strike
Scores of Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) senior staff members on Thursday, for three hours, picketed the forecourt of the regional office in Kumasi, with some threatening to plunge the country into total darkness if the government did not backtrack on the concession process.
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Dancing to brass band music, some of the staff who spoke to the media insisted that after the three-day strike, from 9a.m. to 12 noon each day, if the government decided to give the company out on concession for $500 million for 25 years, they would advise themselves.
Wearing mainly red dresses and red arm and headbands, they carried placards some of which read “Stop ECG concession now “, “Politicians, Leave ECG Alone”, “Concession is not the best solution to power challenges” and “Stop Concession now”.
Threats
Richard Barimah, a senior staff, told the Daily Graphic that they were not picketing because of possible job losses alone but the fact that a foreign company would not have the interest of the ordinary Ghanaian in a rural area at heart.
Mr Bismark Opoku, a member of the Senior Staff Association, also expressed surprise that under the concession, the government was ready to defray all the debt owed ECG as a result of the inability of security agencies, schools and hospitals to defray their debts and showed how those debts would not be accrued again under the concession.
He said if the government was ready to do all these because of the concession which would in the long term impoverish the Ghanaian and enrich the foreign company, why would the government not do same for the ECG so that it would serve Ghanaian industries and commercial end users better.
Chairman
When contacted, the Chairman of the Ashanti Regional Senior Staff Association of the ECG, Mr Bismark Adomah, said the half-day strike was a decision by the National Executive Committee (ECG) of the ECG Senior Staff Association, with the support of the Public Utility Workers Union (PUWU).
He said the plan was that after the three-hour strike, the NEC and PUWU would review the situation and take appropriate action if the government refused to halt the concession processes.
When this reporter asked if they would shut down electricity supply, Mr Adomah said just as soldiers at war would not reveal their tactics and the next line of action, they were also holding their cards to their chest.
He noted that the ECG could not be accused of inefficiency and could not fathom the reason the government would want to put the ECG on concession, adding that “ECG has challenges just as the presidency,” asking, “does it mean that to address the problems at the Presidency we should put it on concession?”
Mr Adomah said the government could not be disassociated from the problems facing the ECG because it was the same government that had been appointing the managing directors and the board members who had provided direction for the company.
