The little over 3,000 ex-workers of the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA) whose benefits have remained unpaid sicne they were retrenched in 2002 could be contemplating civil chaos to force government to pay them.
Enquirer has picked up signals that the frustrated ex-employees could be targeting Election Day, December 7, as a befitting day to pay the country back in its own coin and make headlines in the process.
Information is still sketchy, but source tell Enquirer that, among others, a series of clandestine meetings in Tema have discussed the possibility of snatching ballot boxes on Election Day in the Greater Accra and Western regions because these are the regions where the ex-workers, who had been employed at the Tema and Takoradi ports, are based.
According to the information, the disillusioned by the arrogant neglect of the plight by government after 14 whole years of peaceful appeals and therefore have come to conclusion that the only way to fight the travesty of justice is to use travesty.
The intent of the possible sabotage of the vote on December 7, according to information, is not to despise Ghana's democracy but to call national attention to their plight, our source says.
"They feel the government is ignoring them because many Ghanaians have not really been paying attention to their plight, if the organized sabotages in the Greater Accra and Western region come on, they believe it would serve to alert even the international community about their plight," the source said.
Many of the ex-workers have died from melancholy, while others have gone mad after they were retrenched in 2002 by the GPHA and sent off with only a handshake.
Attempts to use both parliament and the courts to get justice are said to have been sabotaged by the GPHA, which hired the ex-workers' lawyer for them and allegedly coached him to clumsily lose the case against the GPHA.
Indeed, in his last appearance before the Supreme Court on behalf of the ex-workers, Albert Adaare had incurred the anger of Chief Justice Georgina Theodora Wood, who could not help lamenting his procedural errors.
Even so, the Chief Justice had ordered the GPHA to return to the negotiation table with the ex-workers, before she dismissed the case on grounds of procedural errors.
Albert Adaare, as lawyer for the ex-workers,strangely, only managed to get five, out of the over 3,000 victims, paid their retrenchment benefits by government.
Stephen Ashietey Adjei, leader of the ex-workers, has long impressed the ex-workers to be peaceful and lawful in the fight for their entitlements, but a source says, he was recently constrained to agree to the plan to sabotage December 7.
Mr. Ashietey Adjei has since refused to confirm or deny the planned sabotage.
Yesterday, in an interview with The Enquirer, he only said the ex-workers have duly advised themselves.
"We have our plans, we are not sharing them with anybody," hes aid, after he had demanded to know the source of the information.
Moshake., as Mr. Adjei is affectionately called, then launched a tirade on the Ghanaian media for being of great disservice to Ghanaians because according to him, the media had wickedly neglected the plight of the ex-workers.
"Look, people have died, marriages have collapsed, while people are on the verge of committing suicide, but what do you people care...all you do is NPP, NDC politics," he fumed.
He lambasted Ghanaian politicians,e specially President Mahama and the NPP's Nana Akufo Addo, blaming them for what hes aid was a deliberate neglect of the ex-workers issue, even though the issue is well known to them.
"In 2012, the late president Mills had issued a fiat, ordering the Transport Ministry and the GPHA to pay us. however, he died later in July, that year, and since then president Mahama has refused to act on the fiat by his father," he asserted.
<<Print>>