Railway workers call for apology from MCE

Kumasi, July 21, GNA- The Ashanti Regional branch of the Railway Workers Union has called on Mr Maxwell Kofi Jumah, Kumasi Metropolitan Chief Executive (MCE), to render an apology to the management of the Ghana Railway Company (GRC) for walking them out of his office.

The Union warned in a resolution that if by June 22, nothing was heard from Mr Jumah they would advise themselves. Mr John Essel, the Area Manager, Mr Benjamin Amofah, the Chief Civil Engineer, Mr Edward Adusei, Area Civil Engineer and Mr John Kenneth Otoo, Estate Manager signed the resolution that also ''registered the management's strongest protest against Mr Jumah for driving them out of his office.''

The memorandum said they had called on the Metro Chief Executive to discuss the projects of the Kumasi Metropolitan Assembly and the GRC stores opposite the Kumasi Central Market, originally funded by the World Bank as part of the Urban Environmental Sanitation Projects, which had been put on hold by the KMA since 2001.

The memorandum said an attempt to react to a claim by the MCE that the collection of ground rents by GRC was illegal and that the company had no land in Kumasi, Mr Jumah angrily asked the management to leave his office.

It said the statutory declaration of SMCD 95 that invested certain portions of lands into the hands of GRC had not been revoked, and as such the lands including the one under dispute still belonged to GRC. It, therefore, called for the stoppage of construction work on the GRC/KMA stores and asked that all other projects being undertaken by the KMA on railway land should cease forthwith.

The resolution called for fresh negotiations between GRC and the KMA with special reference to the existing laid down procedure which was put in place since the construction of the Subin drain but which had been violated by Mr Jumah since he assumed office in 2001.

The Union called for an apology from the MCE to management of GRC and repeated that if by Tuesday, July 22 their requirements had not been met, they will advise themselves.

When the MCE was reached for his version he declined to comment and said he was awaiting the ministerial committee set up by the Minister of Railways and Ports to renew all railway lands. He said other issues raised by the union would be referred to the appropriate sectors of the KMA for action.