Tension brews @ GPHA

Reports reaching Today indicate that tension is brewing within the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA) over an alleged usurpation of powers and interference by the Richard Anamoo led-management in the affairs of the local unions.

The situation, this paper gathered, has generated a lot of anger among the workforce thereby setting the stage for a possible confrontation with management any time soon.

Information available pointed to the fact that the workers, particularly at the Takoradi branch, were not happy with attempts by the management to prevent an election meant to elect new executives for the local workers’ Union after the term of the current executives expired.

Speaking in an interview with the paper after attending a durbar with the Director-General (D-G) of GPHA, Mr. Anamoo, on Tuesday, July 21, 2015, the workers pointed out that the term of the executive body who assumed a four-year mandate in June 16, 2011, has long expired and that fresh elections should have been organised to usher in new leaders for the local union.

The workers subsequently alleged that the out of favour executives were still hanging on to power with the tacit support of management whiles the Director-General was directly manoeuvring to ensure that the executives were retained in office.

They lamented that the continued stay in office of the old executives was not only affecting the smooth running of the local union but also posing a threat to industrial peace.

They said though the Maritime and Dockworkers Union (MDU) fixed June 25, 2015 and August 25, 2015 as dates for the local union elections for Takoradi and Tema branches respectively ,the Takoradi local union executives protested holding their election on the stipulated date, arguing that they had not exhausted their four-year tenure.

The paper understands that the executives were making a strong case for the elections to be held in September 2015 contending that they had not fully exhausted their term.

This paper also learnt that the executives were insisting that because their previous term which spanned from September 2007 to September 2011 was truncated after a request by the former MDU General Secretary that the election for new officers should take place in June 2011 instead of September of that year, they sacrificed three months of their term.

The request, they explained, was to enable the General Secretary to attend an international conference.

For sacrificing the three months which they should have served in 2011, the executives maintained that they want to extend their stay till September 2015 to make up for the loss.

They also advanced the lack of funds to finance the printing of ballot papers and other logistics as the reasons for wanting to conduct the polls in September.

But with all these explanations, the workers still rejected, saying, they (GPHA Takoradi workers) have agreed to secure a private loan to fund the elections.

After mobilising funds on their own to print the ballot papers for about 700 workers to elect new leaders, four of the local union executives went to court and secured an ex-parte injunction against the elections which was to be held on 25th June 2015.

And on the same day of disrupting the elections through the court injunction, one of the plaintiffs, Mr Essilfie, who is the local union secretary, had extensive discussion of the issue on a local FM station and tried to justify the actions of the local union executives.
When the workers realised that the local union leaders had money to secure the services of a lawyer to litigate against them, they became angry and passed a vote of no confidence in the local union executives.

The vote of no confidence was signed by 615 workers out of the about 700 workers including two members of the current executives.

Further gathered that management took advantage of the crisis to suspend the elections in the ports citing security as the reason.

According to the workers, the continued support of management of GPHA to the union executives is the root cause of the tension at the port.

According to the GPHA workers of Takoradi, the leadership of MDU, through an engagement with the union executives, shop stewards and those aspiring for positions managed and got the court action withdrawn.

Subsequently, Friday, July 24th, 2015 has been fixed as a new date for the conduct of the polls and accordingly communicated to management.

However, the workers said they have had information of a meeting that occurred between management of GPHA and the local union executives of Tema and Takoradi which discussed plans to disrupt the Takoradi elections scheduled for Friday, 24th July, 2015.

That meeting, according to our checks, hatched a plan to cause both the Takoradi and Tema local union elections to be held simultaneously.

The workers said that their suspicion was confirmed when the Director General of GPHA, Mr. Richard Anamoo, held a durbar with the Takoradi workers on Tuesday, 21st July, 2015 and stated that the local union elections for Tema and Takoradi should be held on the same day.

According to the workers, the local union executives have supported management to intimidate all categories of workers and it was not surprising that the Director-General was supporting them to continue to cling on to power but could not provide tangible justification.

They also accused the D-G of showering union executives with goodies, foreign travels among others.

These, they indicated, has helped the D-G to maintain a stronghold on the unions.

“It’s not a good sign that the Director-General spends his time to think about how to control the union. It makes the workers think that he has something to hide,” a worker stated.

Attempts by the paper however to reach Mr. Anamoo proved futile as several calls placed on his cell phone went unanswered.

And he equally did not respond to our text message of issues raised against him.