COUNCIL OF LABOUR ISSUES ULTIMATUM (PAGE 3, OCT 26)

THE Tema District Council of Labour has given the government a two-week ultimatum to lift crude oil for the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) to enable it to begin full operations this year.
It said the council would advise itself on the next course of action at the end of the two-week ultimatum.
The Chairman of the council, Mr Wilson Agana, issued the ultimatum at an emergency meeting with members of the refinery unionised staff and organised labour in Tema last Friday as a follow-up to President Mills’s visit to the refinery in the wake of workers’ agitation over the non-availability of crude oil, for which the workers had threatened to embark on an industrial action.
Mr Agana noted that the prevailing situation of no oil for TOR to refine had negative repercussions for the country because of the heavy dependence of other industries on the refinery for their raw materials.
The Chairman of the senior staff of the refinery’s local union, Mr Bernard Entsiwah, commended the President for the visit and impressed upon him to initiate immediate steps towards the fulfilment of the promise he made to workers and the nation as a whole.
He urged the government to pay serious attention to the operations of the refinery, since it played a very significant role in the economic growth of the country.
Mr Entsiwah regretted that billions of Ghana cedis had been spent on the rehabilitation of the refinery but it had not been put to appropriate use “as a result of non-availability of crude oil”.
He attributed the situation to some people’s parochial interests and warned that it could cripple the country’s economy and endanger the emerging oil industry.
The Secretary-General of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), Mr Kofi Asamoah, called on the government to refer the alleged $300,000 loan taken by top officials at the Energy Ministry to the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) for investigations.
The workers had alleged that the loan was taken from the SG-SSB Bank to facilitate the procurement of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LGP) to be sold through a third party to TOR.
He also called on local unions to endeavour to channel their complaints through their mother unions.