Comment: Make Ghana immune to public sector strikes

No Ghanaian citizen resident in Ghana ought to become a victim of striking and militant employees of entities that come under various organs of the Ghanaian nation-state.

It really is intolerable that innocent people should die needlessly; for example, as a result of strike action by healthcare professionals employed to work in government hospitals and clinics around the country. Nothing can justify that. Ever! Not in a civilised nation such as ours.

The time has now come for those who currently rule our nation to take active steps to ensure that no employee of any entity under an organ of a nation-state- which spends over 60 percent of total government revenue to pay its employees, is driven to hold Ghanaians to ransom by embarking on strike actions under any circumstances - without automatically being dismissed from their job.

There can be no justification for state employees inconveniencing Ghanaian citizens by embarking on strike action.

After all, it is precisely because of the dedicated service they are required to render the people of Ghana and their nation during their working lives that the Ghanaian nation-state guarantees public-sector employees a pension for the rest of their lives; when they finally go on retirement.

President Mahama's administration ought to draw up a suitable bill to be presented to Parliament, and passed into law, which will outlaw strikes by all categories of public-sector employees. It is long overdue- in a nation that has to be globally competitive and disciplined in order to prosper.

President Mahama and his administration must learn valuable lessons from the extraordinary number of actual strikes, and threats of strikes by public-sector employees since their regime came to power in January 2013.

Hopefully, having now seen the light, one hopes that the current administration will now understand that selling its remaining stake in the partially state-owned downstream oil marketing company, Ghana Oil Company Limited (GOIL), is a very bad idea.

If GOIL remains in government hands, and is encouraged to sell LPG gas in outlets where that would be profitable; for example, one doubts very much that the current widespread artificial LPG gas shortages would ever occur again, going forward.

Keeping GOIL in government hands will also ensure that should it ever happen, any future politically motivated strike by privately-owned oil marketing companies refusing to sell fuel and other refined petroleum products to motorists will not cause the national economy to grind to a halt.

And if privately-owned bus companies and other private transport owners decided to go on strike at some point in future to put political pressure on a government of the day- which the opposition party they supported wanted to make unpopular - would a state-owned Intercity STC bus company, together with the Metro Mass Transit Company not still keep the travelling public moving, and enable travellers to reach their final destinations around the country safely?

Instead of the short-sighted decision to find a strategic investor to hand it over to, the present government would be wise to give the Intercity STC bus company to the commercial wing of the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF).

The GAF will assemble a team of suitably qualified individuals - civilian and military - to run it as a disciplined, no-nonsense results-oriented business entity.

It is just the sort of business that will thrive in the efficient and disciplined hands of the GAF - which is peerless when it comes to logistics. It proved it with Air Link - which at a point in time was the only domestic airline in Ghana.

Surely, Intercity STC's largest shareholder, the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT), which wants to divest its holding in the company,would gladly accept long-term government paper with a decent coupon which it could discount for cash today as payment for its stake.

To have the peace of mind to fulfill its manifesto promises to Ghanaians within its 4-year tenure, President Mahama's administration must think strategically.

What is going on now is only a dress rehearsal for the 2015-2016 campaign season when Ghana will definitely become "ungovernable" (to quote a genius) - if laws outlawing strikes by public-sector employees are not in place; as its main political opponent seeks to make the Mahama administration unpopular.

That is why President Mahama's administration must take active steps now to insulate itself from the effects of politically motivated strikes - by passing appropriate laws and taking suitable measures (including becoming the fairest and most enlightened employer in the land), which will make the Ghanaian nation-state immune to strikes by public-sector employees. A word to the wise...