Akufo-Addo must ignore calls for removal of VALCO leadership - Stephen Ashitey Adjei

Tema based political activist, Mr. Stephen Ashitey Adjei has called on President Nana Akufo-Addo to ignore calls on him to sack all retirees of the Volta Aluminium company who are on contract. In a statement, following the clamour by workers of VALCO, Mr. Ashitey Adjei, who is popularly called Moshake, warned that such a move would be rush and could potentially set the company back. “VALCO is not like some tomatoe or farm or a unit of government bureaucracy, it is a highly technical company, so persons who work there must be of serious technical savvy. Finding such persons is not that easy,” Moshake warned. Consequently, he added that, “if you rush and sack the experts there simply because workers are agitating for it, you are going to create a sudden vacuum of expertise that will end being costly to the company because VALCO may shut down.” Moshake’s take is coming after workers of the company staged a demonstration and called on President Akufo-Addo to remove all retirees on contract at the state company. Local Chairman of the union, Edgar Tetteh, led Union members to name some 27 staff on contract that they say must go. Calling on president Akufo-Addo to step in, Mr. Edgar Tetteh said, “The way forward is to impress upon the owners of the company, which is Ghana government whose leader is Nana Addo Dankwah Akufo-Addo, the President of the state to step in.” But according to Moshake, Mr. Tetteh’s call “is rush and does not pause to consider the debilitating impact that suddenly kicking out 27 experts from a highly technical company like VALCO can create.” Management of the Company shut down operations following agitation of workers who are demanding the removal of workers above the retirement age in the company as well as the resolution of their salary concerns. The workers also want the restoration of their salaries to the equivalent of the dollar rate. Commenting on this, Moshake wrote, “there definitely is a strange connection between what appears to be workers seek of better conditions of service and the demand for some of the most experienced brains of VALCO to be sacked. The question is, what really do the workers want?” Meanwhile, Moshake advised that President Akufo-Addo hasten slowly in respect of the retirees, saying that rather than fire them in one fell swoop to please the workers, the President should rather keep them and let them retire in phases as new experts become available. “Also, what VALCO needs to address is the need for a strategic investor and not the removal of its best brains simply because they have reached retirement age.” “Wisdom preserves alive it’s owners and the applications of wisdom to VALCO and life in general produces joy,” Moshake concluded.