Accra Abattoir Workers On Indefinite Strike

Butchers and other staff at the Accra Abattoir have started an indefinite strike to demand the payment of their salaries. The workers are demanding the payment of salary arrears from last April to date totaling about 117 million Cedis.

The striking workers have petitioned President Kufuor and are seeking an audience with him. They have threatened not to return to work until the President returns from his visit to Spain to give them a favorable response.

They accuse the management of the company of withholding their salaries for no apparent reason. A spokesman for the agitating workers, Samuel Omani Boadi told JOY FM that countless petitions to SSNIT and other shareholders have yielded no results.

The government of Ghana has a 51.3% stake in the Accra Abattoir, which was constructed with a 5-billion Cedi grant from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).

The Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) has a 36.6% stake in the company with the Accra Metropolitan Assembly holding 7.19 percent, MASAI with 4.84 percent and the Butchers Association with 0.02%. The Abattoir has however not been able to break even because butchers in Accra have refused to patronize the facility.