Stephen Ashitey Adjei is our leader – GPHA ex-workers
Some of the over four thousand ex-workers of the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA) who were retrenched in 2002 without their severance benefits, have reiterated that their leader is Mr. Stephen Ashitey Adjei.
In a statement released to the public and signed by Daniel Baccah and 13 other persons from Tema and Takoradi, one of the regular voices in the media on the ex-workers’ 22-year cause for justice, it was emphatically stated that all the ex-workers, spread across Tema, Takoradi and Ashiaman, respond to only Mr. Ashitey Adjei as leader.
“We gave Stephen Ashitey Adjei, alias Moshake, our written consent as our leader in 2003 and have since that time, only received leadership from him. We have since not met anybody to revoke that leadership,” the statement said.
It is not really clear why the ex-workers are springing to the defense of their indefatigable leader, but it hinted that some latter-day people have suddenly emerged and are posing as the new leaders of the ex-workers.
“When Moshake was being arrested and thrown into Police cells and the James Fort Prison because he wouldn’t take bribes and abandon the rest of us like some people did, where were these latter-day apostles?” the statement asked rhetorically.
Tracing Moshake’s leadership back to 2003, the statement said after the ex-workers had been cheated by the GPHA, they had first been organized by Daniel Mensah who became their first leader. However, he passed away after some months of leading the struggle for justice.
“Then in 2003, we met and gave Stephen Ashitey Adjei our mandate in a writing to lead us. And he has been our leader since,” the statement added.
It expressed satisfaction in Mr. Ashitey Adjei’s leadership saying that, among others, Moshake refused juicy bribes in exchange for abandoning the ex-workers but he did not succumb.
“We know the struggles of our leader and how people have plotted against his life all because he chose not to abandon us but fight with us from the trenches in the past 22 years,” parts of the statement read adding that any of the people who are now posturing as the leaders of the GPHA ex-workers had been Moshake, “they would have given up a long time ago, but after 22 years, Stephen Ashitey Adjei is still fighting for us.”
Emphasizing that indeed Moshake is and has been the leader of the ex-workers since 2003, the statement dared what it described as “the latter-day impostors” to answer a number of crucial questions about the GPHA ex-workers 22-year cause for justice.
“Where were they, when Stephen Ashitey Adjei was dealing with parliament, National Labour Commission and a senior member of the Kufuor government, who was the Minister for Ports and Harbours, Professor Ameyaw Ekumfi, on our issue after the retrenchment?
“Where were they when Stephen Ashitey Adjei engaged Lawyer Abraham Ossei Aidooh as our lawyer after we parted ways with Lawyer Albert Adaare?”
“Where were they when Moshake wrote to then President Atta Mills in 2012 and got the President to issue a fiat for us to be paid?”
“Where were they when Stephen Ashitey Adjei was writing to Parliament and soliciting the assistance of now Speaker of Parliament, Alban Sumana Kingsford Bagbin to assist us in our cause for justice?”
“Since day one of the Akufo-Addo government, Stephen Ashitey Adjei has been corresponding with the president over our issue, leading to President Akufo-Addo directing the GPHA to pay us in August 2023, where have they been all these while?”
“And when GPHA ignored the President’s directive and Moshake organized
us the ex-workers to enable us embark on demonstration, where were they?”
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