APS can only re-open by Joint Decision - Ag.Director

Tema (Greater Accra) 18 March '99

The Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA) said that any plans to re-open the Atlantic Port Services (APS) must be based on a unified decision by the two factions fighting over the company. "We want a unified APS to ensure peace and security in the port," Mr Kwaku Duah Boateng, Acting Director-General of the GPHA, told the GNA in an interview in reaction to an announcement that the company will re-open on Wednesday. APS, a private stevedoring company set up by the late Chief Hamilton Biney, was closed down last Thursday following a dispute between two factions of his children over who should run the company. One of the factions, led by G.K.A. Biney as managing director, brought in securitymen from Intercom Security Services who drove out all the workers, shut the company and invaded the staff quarters at Community 12 where they deflated the tyres of all the company's vehicles. Meanwhile the Maritime and Dock workers Union (MDU) which asked the Private Enterprise Foundation to mediate in the dispute has said the decision by G.K.A. Biney to re-open the company is premature since the main issue threatening the employment of the workers had not been resolved. Mr Kofi Asamoah, General Secretary of the MDU, said that the decision to re-open would not be in the interest of the workers since the issue of who should take over had ended in a deadlock. The GPHA has also stated that the closure of the APS cargo has not in any way affected stevedoring activities. The company is currently under police guard after the GPHA compelled Intercom Security Services to withdraw its men.