Mahama’s Oath To Do Justice Must Start With GPHA Ex-workers
The distraught ex-workers of the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA) whose severance benefits have remained unpaid since they were retrenched in 2002, have made a clarion call on President John Mahama to make good the oath he swore, to do good to all manner of persons, during his investiture.
In a statement released in Accra and signed by the ex-workers leader, Stephen Ashitey Adjei, President Mahama’s attention was drawn to the fact that paying the GPHA ex-workers is the rightest place to start fulfilling this oath.
“The explanation is simple – we remain the group of Ghanaians under the Fourth Republic against whom the longest injustice has been perpetrated – for 23 years we have remained unpaid while almost everyone else has received justice. If His Excellency President John Mahama is duty-bound, per his oath, to do justice to all manner of persons, we are more than qualified to be the people that he starts fulfilling this oath with,” part of the statement read.
It came in the wake of President John Mahama ordering the Inspector General of Police to provide an update on the killing of some twelve Ghanaians during the 2020 and 2024 general elections.
Given that the ex-workers have remained unpaid for 23 years, it was their distraught that President Mahama did not include their issue in the order for justice to be done.
“We are not saying that the election-related killings are not worth prioritizing, but we think that given that our case had long been pending before these murders, there ought to have been the same attention given it,” the statement said.
It added that, “as a result of the untold poverty and destitution that the ex-GPHA workers have been suffering for the past 23 years, some among us have also died, and others continue to die, just like those who were killed during the elections.”
In 2002, some 4,000 workers of the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA) were retrenched in an exercise that was funded by the World Bank as part of a programme to make ports efficient.
However, the managers of the GPHA at the time under the Kufuor government, had allegedly diverted the money meant for the ex-workers and sent them off empty-handed.
This led to the ex-workers agitating, and in response to the agitation, the GPHA at the time paid only five of the ex-workers out of the over 4,000.
Attempts were made to bribe the ex-workers’ leader, Stephen Ashitey Adjei, alias Moshake, into silence but he refused and as punishment for his refusal Moshake was thrown into prison amidst attempts to poison him.
After the Mills government had succeeded the Kufuor government, President Mills issued a fiat for the ex-workers to be paid. Professor Mills would however die soon after the fiat, leaving the process to President Mahama.
The Mahama presidency abandoned the process and the ex-workers remained unpaid until it left office, paving way for the Akufo-Addo government.
President Akufo-Addo had eventually issued a directive for the ex-workers to be paid on humanitarian grounds, but while the administrative processes were ongoing, the Akufo-Addo government’s tenure ended, with president Mahama being elected into office.
In one of the early acts of his presidency, President Mahama has asked the IGP to update him on the killings that were perpetrated during the 2020 and 2024 elections.
“But what about us? Have we not also suffered injustice?” the ex-workers’ statement queried.
It lamented that in the 23 years that they have remained unpaid, politicians who have come into office and left have received fat gratuity by way of ex-gratia. “We are not asking for those fat ex-gratias, all we want is the little that is due us as citizens of Ghana who toiled for our motherland through the state agency called GPHA,” the statement said.
It called on the Mahama administration to prioritize the payment of the GPHA ex-workers as soon as possible to end ongoing destitution among those surviving.
“There are ex-workers who are still bed-ridden, people who are dying because they cannot afford medical care. We are aware that the Akufo-Addo government worked on the process to pay us up to a point. We ask the Mahama government to continue from there,” the statement said.
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