Ex-GPHA workers demand payment of gratuity
Some aggrieved former workers of the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA) yesterday stormed the headquarters of the authority to demand full payment of their severance package.
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Clad in red and wearing red wrist bands, the ex-workers converged on the main road leading to the offices of the GPHA to demand the payment of their full retirement benefits.
The workers were part of a voluntary retirement exercise in 2002 but are yet to receive the full retirement package.
Stand-Off
The demonstrators, numbering over 100, who had sought permission from the police to picket in front of the GPHA headquarters in Tema, later insisted on marching to the office of Mr Richard Anamoo, the Director General of the GPHA, and Mr Jacob Adorkor, the Director of Port, Tema, to demand their gratuity.
They were, however, prevented by the police from entering the premises.
After nearly three hours of running battles with the police over access to the offices of the GPHA, the aggrieved former workers agreed to call off the action and rather petition the Presidency and the Transition Team to have their issues resolved as early as possible.
Placards
The demonstrators held placards with inscriptions such as: “The 14 years of waiting is over”, “We want our benefits paid”, “The deceit and lies must stop”, “‘We are dying”, “Mr Owusu Mensah, you said you don’t owe us. The five people court ordered you to pay, why did you pay them? Don’t lie”, “Georgina Wood, is that how you are as Chief Justice?”
Several demonstrations
This is the umpteenth time in the last 14 years that the former port workers have staged a protest over claims that over 4,000 of them are owed several millions of cedis in employee compensation.
The Spokesperson for the ex-workers, Mr Laud Nsiah Laryea, in an interview with the Daily Graphic, said in 2002 the management of the GPHA embarked on a World Bank funded project dubbed: ‘Voluntary retirement exercise’ as part of the restructuring of the port.
Some staff opted for the voluntary retirement programme, he said, and as a result were paid their benefits, but upon careful calculation, they discovered that the management of the GPHA had short-changed them.
Mr Laryea said the group took legal action against the company and, in 2008, the Supreme Court gave a ruling in their favour. But only five of them had been given their rightful severance package.
He wondered why the GPHA management had refused to pay the rest of the workers what was rightfully due them.
The Corporate Affairs Manager of the GPHA, Mr Paul Ansah Asare, who interacted briefly with the aggrieved ex- workers, urged them to go back to the Supreme Court to enforce the implementation of the court ruling if they believed strongly that they had secured judgement in their favour.
