Although the Millennium Development Authority (MiDA) has assured that there will be no job losses in the first five years of the Electricity Company of Ghana’s privatisation, there are still major concerns about workers being laid off after the five year grace period has elapsed, Ishmael Edjekumhene, Executive Director of the Kumasi Institute of Technology and Environment (KITE), has disclosed.
The Public Utilities Workers Union (PUWU) has raised several concerns about job cuts if the MiDA takes over the state power distributor under the Millennium Challenge Compact II agreement. But the Director of Communications and Outreach for MiDA, Pamela Djamson-Tetteh, allayed fears, saying the workers would not be retrenched in the first five years of the takeover.
She told Chief Jerry Forson, host of Ghana Yensom, on Accra100.5FM on Thursday September 15 that: “As we speak there is no provision at ECG where workers cannot be retrenched. Workers can be laid off at any time at ECG as of today but we are saying that under the concessionaire regime, when the PSP (private sector participation) takes off, we are insisting that there is a provision that the concessionaire is not allowed to retrench ECG workers for five years.
“So it’s an improvement on the current situation. So, for five years the concessionaire is not allowed to retrench any worker at ECG and we have given ECG workers this assurance. Even after five years, there are labour laws that we have in Ghana that are effective which currently all organisations are bound by.”
But also speaking in an interview on the same show, Mr Edjekumhene said: “It is not entirely true for MiDA to say there will be no job loss. There will be no job losses for the first five years but after the five years there could be job losses…”
He added: “There will be no job losses in the first five years because there is an agreement that nobody should be laid off but post that, if for any reason the concessionaire feels that he doesn’t need all the people they inherited from ECG I don’t think anything stops them from laying workers off.”
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