Maritime & Dockworkers' Union holds Conference

Bunso (E/R), June 04, GNA - The Maritime and Dockworkers' Union (MDU) has expressed its opposition to a situation where competition in the maritime industry would undermine labour and social standards and render its members vulnerable.

Mr Kwabena Owusu Afriyie, General Secretary of the union, said the MDU was also opposed to privatization and deregulation that would have grave negative consequences for its members. Addressing the 10th Quadrennial Delegates Conference of the MDU at Bunso in the East Akyem Municipality on Tuesday, Mr Afriyie said government had a central role to play in developing regulations and public policy for the protection of workers' rights and increase benefits to the nation in an environment of increasing foreign investment in the maritime industry.

On the oil find, he urged the government to learn from mistakes it made in the gold mining sector as it engages with the oil companies. "We had provided incentives that are too generous to mining companies to the detriment of national development. For example, the tax exemptions provided to them for the importation of mining equipment deprives the ports and revenue agencies the needed revenues to improve workers condition and for national development". Mr Afriyie appealed to the government to improve the fiscal regime for the extractive sector to increase benefits from revenues and the oil agreements should depart from the practice where the ports would service mining and oil companies for minimal benefits. He called for the use of the oil revenues to build a non-oil economy, adding "We must use the oil money to develop other sectors of the economy such as agriculture and manufacturing. " Mr Kofi Asamoah, Acting Secretary-General of the Ghana Trades Union Congress (GTUC), said he was not happy about large numbers of seven unions in the transport industry and called on them to merger to grow stronger.

He said there was a growing realization around the world that the only way to effectively deal with the rapidly changing world was to form alliances and mergers to be able to benefit from the synergies that result from such cooperation.