During the celebration of the 2023 May Day, held in the Upper East Region, the Secretary-General of the Trade Union Congress (TUC), Dr. Anthony Yaw Baah, made his address and it seems he is being made a hero for the words he said.
The TUC is suggesting that the National Cathedral Project must be converted into a national hospital. And also, government must be reduced in size, since to the TUC, Ghana has too many ministers and deputy ministers.
The TUC also demanded that the government must intervene in its revenue mobilisation efforts but cautioned against the excessive use of regressive taxes which will burden local businesses.
It looks like some politicians are in the TUC and are playing the political card to suit their political parties, because the Volta and Oti Regional Secretary of the TUC, Edith Abla Amenuvor Afenu, also added that the current economic crisis cannot be blamed on global challenges such as Covid-19 and the Russian-Ukraine War, but on government’s mismanagement of the public purse which was exposed by the global crisis.
She added that the IMF bail out cannot change our economic challenges, but rather impose more burden on the ordinary Ghanaian worker.
Tough talks, one may say. However, the two sounded like megaphones being used by invisible opposition figures to state their case, as to why they should be chosen to lead Ghana in 2025. And both of them are putting out a bold statement so they get considered for appointment should another party form government.
Before I begin from the bottom, I want to draw readers’ attention to the TUC’s double standards. It always comes out to fight any administration on workers’ matters and making a strong case that workers must be treated like royals with their rights fully observed.
But, is it really the case? At least not in the case of a certain Mr. Peter Brew who was a middle management staff of the TUC, and whose appointment was wrongfully and illegally terminated, five years ago.
In 2017, Peter was transferred from Accra to Wa in the Upper West region to take up responsibilities there. He arrived at his new post but was given not a pesewa, except his transport fare. Nothing for accommodation. He rightfully petitioned Head Office and asked for money, ASAP. Nothing was done. Facing challenges, he submitted receipts of things he purchased which was to have been done by the TUC.
In responding, the Union blocked his accounts.In December 2017, when he went to inform the Union of the death of his mother, in sympathetic response, he was rather handed a letter of termination of his appointment.
Peter went to the Labour Commission and after thoroughly examining the facts, the Commission found the TUC went contrarily to the Industrial Relations Act and further violated the Union’s own Collective Bargain Agreement.
The Commission found the TUC guilty of failing to discharge its responsibilities to Mr. Peter Brew and demanded that the Union should pay Mr. Peter Brew all his benefits and entitlements including what he spent in the North.
The TUC’s Collective Bargain Agreement states clearly that with any such transfer, the affected worker is to be paid an inconvenience allowance which is the equivalent of three months’ salary, but Peter Brew was not paid, anything.
Five years on and Mr. Peter Brew is yet to receive his money from the TUC.
This is the TUC we are talking about, always in the headlines for being very vocal on workers’ rights and yet within, this Union has wrongfully and illegally denied the rights of its own worker. How many more Peter Brews are in the TUC who are wrongly treated but are not able to come out and voice their feelings?
Now, Edith is saying the global crisis, exposed the government’s economic mismanagement. Is she that ignorant about the state of the economy before the global crisis came?
Is she ignorant about the fact that this NPP administration inherited Inflation at 17.45% from 2016 and reduced it to 12.37% in 2017, before recording single digits from 2018 through to 2021, when the effects of the global crisis struck? Is this what she calls an economic mismanagement?
Is Edith ignorant about the fact that this administration is the best performer when it comes to trade balances? Is Edith ignorant of the fact that the previous NDC administration closed 2016 with a trade deficit of-$3.08 billion, and this was reduced to -$1.690 billion in 2017 by the NPP government.
And under this administration Ghana recorded its first trade surplus in this Fourth Republic at $2.050 billion in 2020 and keeps posting trade surpluses since then even during these difficult times of global crisis.When Ghana is still recording trade surpluses Edith says it is economic mismanagement?
Edith should be humble and upgrade her knowledge about facts and not allow herself to used by hypocrites who would tell a lie and defend it with their lives. Over the eight years of Mills/Mahama NDC administration, when there was no global economic crisis, our average trade balance was -$4.55 billion. After seven years of this Nana Akufo-Addo led administration, which included four years of global crisis, Ghana is recording an average trade deficit of -$25 million. Can this be described as economic mismanagement?
Now back to what Dr. Anthony Yaw Baah said. Why is the TUC now suggesting that the National Cathedral should be converted to a national hospital? Why did the Union not make this point when the president first talked about building a national cathedral? Is it not an act of cowardice and dishonesty to first keep calm and watch a project start before one comes out to advise against it?
Today, some Ghanaians are condemning the National Cathedral project, not because it is a bad idea and not because state funds had gone into it, but because it is the president’s idea.
And what is thing about cutting down the size of government? The Mills/Mahama administration had eighty-four or more ministers and deputy ministers when Ghana had ten regions. Currently Ghana has less than eighty-nine ministerial appointees. And this is with sixteen regions. It is clear that the NDC would have had at least ninety-six ministers and deputy ministers under sixteen regions.
And Dr. Anthony Yaw Baah is demanding that the government must intervene in its revenue mobilization efforts but cautioned against the excessive use of regressive taxes which will burden local businesses. Is he saying he was not in Ghana during the Mahama administration, when the then president H.E. John Mahama told Ghanaians that government cannot survive without people paying excessive taxes to enable it have adequate funds to manage the country? Where was the TUC when in 2014, the NDC government imposed a 17.5% VAT on Financial Services, when after any bank transaction, government will take 17.5% from the customer? The TUC should compare that with NPP’s 1.00% E-Levy and come again and tell Ghanaians, which of the two, is regressive.
The most important thing the TUC should be doing is to advice workers to lift up their game at their various work places. What is dragging Ghana down cannot be blamed solely on politicians but largely on the ordinary worker.
Most workers will report to work late and leave earlier than scheduled, so with an eight-hour work shift, a typical worker will work for at most six hours and yet collect full pay.
Many workers, especially those in the Civil Service, are more partisan than the politicians.They have full commitment to their political parties than to the state. If the government in power is not their political party, they will do well to let things go slow or not at all.
Today the civil servant will welcome the political appointee and suggest the need to have a seminar to look at this or that issue. Surely, during such seminars, money will flow, imprest will be issued out and this will line up the pockets of the civil servant. Catering and other services will go to familiar persons and kick-backs will surely follow.
The seminar will be successful and recommendations will be made. But, wait, these recommendations have been made many times earlier during similar seminars to tackle the same issues. The Civil Servant is out to make money and not to think about the nation, Ghana. Come another administration, the minister would be advised to authorise the organization of the same seminar to address the same issues. And all this while, Ghana is at a standstill.
So, today, Ghana’s problems have more to do with the worker and so the TUC cannot come public and address politicians about what they should do right, because the Union has not been able to direct workers to do the right thing, work hard, dedicatedly and honestly so that Ghana will be the victor.
Dr, Anthony Yaw Baah, you and the workers of Ghana in general are the problem. If you do the right things, the National Cathedral will not be the issue.
If the TUC were to form government, it will surely defend the wrongs of its appointees and attack those who want the right things to be done, like Mr. Peter Brew.
So, before the TUC and Dr. Anthony Yaw Baah talks down government on behalf of workers and the ordinary Ghanaian, they must first address Mr. Peter Brew’s issue and immediately pay him what is rightly and legally due him.
If the TUC cannot treat its own workers properly, what moral right has it got to say government is not treating the citizenry right?
Hon. Daniel Dugan
