Editorial: Please Solve This VRA Brouhaha Now, Mr President

FOR about a year now, a simmering state of anomie has existed at the Volta River Authority formations throughout the country. And given the seeming paralysis at the Castle over the issue of whether or not its embattled Chief Executive Officer, Dr Charles Yves Wereko-Brobby should stay or go, the unrest seems likely to persist for some time to come.

Last week saw another round of the workers demo against Wereko-Brobby on this matter, which is expected to last for sometime.

The situation is highly regrettably, and that is putting it mildly; especially so after a ministerial committee and the Auditor-General have both reported on the issues in dispute between Wereko-Brobby and the VRA Workers.

It is the considered view of the Gye Nyame Concord that the situation is not allowed to persist for a day longer, as its implications for the state of stalemated power play within the NPP Government is unflattering. It suggests a house divided against itself, with one faction wanting to return Wereko-Brobby to the VRA executive powerhouse because of his illustrious political antecedents, and the other insisting that he be sent away willy-nilly, for if he were to die tomorrow the VRA would continue operating.

Except for the two issues of an abrasive management style and the Strategic Reserve Project (SRP), Wereko-Brobby, popularly known as Tarzan, came off unscathed regarding the complaints filed against him by his subordinates. Even in the case of the SRP, on which millions of dollars have been sunk without a joule of electricity being generated to date, he has been exonerated by the Auditor General on the grounds that it was a collective decision of the management and Board.

Ultimately, however, we think he bears the blunt as the CEO behind that decision. After all, he is the person with the final say-so even after management discussions. If the project had gone well, he would certainly claim the praise for it. So therefore, he is ultimately to blame for the inadequate wisdom that went into the decision on the SRP project.

The sticking-thumb however, which no one can gloss over, is the management style. If truth must be told, anyone who knows Wereko-Brobby and can do a little check on him would confess that his belligerent nature, which we are sure, informs his management style, has at times been quite outlandish, as is often the case with whiz kids who have no patience for the fumbling of ordinary mortals who oil the wheels of their progress.

With suggestions in the media that the days of the work place CDRs are long past, there could be the temptation to dare the workers and see what they can do and then break their strike Margaret Thatcher or Hilla Limann style.

When coal miners decided to go on strike and hold the UK to ransom over pay discussions, the former British Iron Lady imported tonnes of coal from Eastern Europe as back-up. She then caused Parliament to pass a law that cut out the workers right to earn salaries while on strike. When the workers struck, there was enough coal and enough emergency workers to keep production on-stream until the workers started feeling the pinch of no-salaries while on their strike and saw the need to return to work.

American President Ronald Reagan is also remembered for a similar but extreme decision on airline workers in the US during his term in office. In his case, he even pronounced thousands of airline workers who went on a strike sacked via a public announcement, raising questions about whether he had that right. He has always defended that decision though.

Of course, such a tactic has been adopted in this country successfully before. Ex-President Hilla Limann brought in Philipino captains and sailors to replace the striking workers of the Black Star Line, having to pay the importees four or five times the salaries of their Ghanaian counterparts in protest over which the industrial dispute was called.

The PNDC trained oil handlers in Cuba and used them to break the back of the then GHAIP (now Tema Oil Refinery) workers who had for years been using strikes as a weapon to keep the military regime in line with their demands. When the workers went on strike and thought they could bring transportation sector activities in the country to a halt in the 80’s, the military regime sneaked in soldiers and other personnel it had trained in Cuba on handling oil production to handle the production process at GHAIP and to keep the production regimen in line, breaking the back of the workers and their strike in the long run. This eventually curtailed the rampant threats of strikes by workers of the then GHAIP.

However, Gye Nyame Concord would like to caution that breaking a strike by coal miners, airline staff and sailors would be child’s play compared to that this particular case of the VRA workers. The talents required for successful operations of the VRA are not the type that can be bought off the shelf easily anywhere in this country. At any point in time, retrenched coal workers and sailors are two a penny, whereas the VRA has been losing its highly trained staff to the advanced economies that are able to appreciate their talents better.

Moreover, the case of the PNDC took years of planning and we would urge President Kufuor to do a thorough check on this.

What the VRA situation means is simple. If the workers remain adamant and keep to their pledge of not working with Wereko-Brobby, then we seriously have a problem on hand. And it is not the type of problem we can easily wish away.

In the first place, our information suggest that there are no contingency plans such as the ones taken by the above named administrations to resolve the problems we are facing at the VRA.

Government handling of the crisis has also been problematic. The problems range from the departure of the precedent where people were interdicted for investigations to be carried out on them to a situation where Wereko-Brobby stepped aside, with his decision being accepted by government, without the same administration realising that its acceptance was a departure from its principle, and that it would arouse workers suspicion of nepotism and favouritism.

This is why Gye Nyame Concord would appeal to Dr Wereko-Brobby to count his blessings, and let the VRA be. It is quite clear that if he leaves now, he would not be leaving because of indictment for fraud or professional malpractice; even his worse enemies would not dare to accuse him of such. Just as his voluntary stepping aside at the beginning of the ministerial committee sittings won him mileage as someone who had nothing to hide but criticism for government, so too would his standing down completely now paint him as someone who does not put his personal interests above that of his Motherland.

And it is our view that President Kufuor must assist to solve the problem at the VRA by giving Wereko-Brobby this advice. If he refuses to heed it, we would expect the President to demand his resignation letter after explaining the situation properly to him.

There surely are other channels where the government can use his undoubted talents for the benefit of our HIPCed economy other than the VRA. He would the more easily be availed such further opportunity to serve the Motherland, if he did not leave a national crisis in his wake at the VRA, especially where the Trades Union Congress (TUC) has officially adopted the VRA workers’ grievance.

We would also appeal to Dr Wereko-Brobby to learn the lesson available for him in his current situation. We would also recommend it to other bosses in the public service. Workers in a privately owned enterprise will quietly take any harassment that their bosses throw at them as much as they can, and eventually go away if it becomes unbearable. But the same does not usually happen in a publicly owned outfit, especially where senior staffs are similarly aggrieved. They would rather band together to agitate and get their alleged oppressor out.

Gye Nyame Concord is appalled at the government’s inaction over the crisis at the VRA. Is this the government that prides itself on the ability to take tough and bitter decisions, without minding whose ox is gored? Why has it become so difficult for them to decide openly one way or the other in the crisis at Electro House?

Or is it that the scare it got over its heedless boldness in the petroleum sector, where its ministers had to be openly dishonest over inflation figures, turned its members into men without balls? Wo anko bi wo sei yanko!