Ghanair Workers Demand Dissolution of Board

THE KEY for the survival of the national carrier, Ghana Airways, is solely in the hands of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) government, the senior staff association and the local union of the tattered national airline have said.

"Currently the airline is walking on the highway to the graveyard and is finding it difficult to settle even the workers salaries and if prompt steps are not taken shortly by the government to redeem it, the company would soon fold up," the local union and senior staff association of Ghanair revealed during a press conference last Wednesday.

The workers have therefore called for the dissolution of the board of directors of the airline and the reconstitution of a new one to save the company from total collapse.

Addressing the newsmen at the company's clubhouse, Mr. Roland Mosore, chairman of the senior staff association, said the airline needs cash injection and a strong re-constituted board of directors to steer the company out of its present predicament.

He also called on the government to give workers of the airline a slot on any future board since the representation of the workers on the board of the company would go a long way to enlighten the members of developments and operations of the airline.

According to workers leaders, currently the airline can only boast of one DC10 while the remaining DC9 aircrafts are still sitting in Italy due to lack of funds for payment after services.

Chairman Mosore revealed that the presence of some top-ranking officials of the company at post, who have been cited in the forensic report for allegedly engaging in fraudulent deals that had 'crash-landed' the national carrier, is causing a lot of disquiet and annihilation to the survival of the company.

He therefore appealed to the government to act on the forensic report to avoid unnecessary under-tones that had engulfed the company since the names of the said officials were published in the newspapers.

As part of steps to salvage the airline the workers appealed to the government to allow the airline to use its own ground handling equipment, that is currently keyed and locked at a warehouse.

The leadership of the workers were of the view that even though the company was going through financial crises, it continued to pay over $200,000 dollars monthly to AFGO for ground handling services for Ghanair while the company was being prevented from using its own ground handling equipment to reduce operational costs.

"We are all privy to how the past government supervised the takeover of our ground handling equipment to AFGO but how long should the airline fold its hands and continue to pay huge sums of money for services from its own equipment which was seized,"

Mosore questioned. Mosore expressed graved concern that almost every property of the airline had been used for mortgage for loans leaving only its personnel but all these could not turn the fortunes of the airline except plunge it into a huge debt.

The workers also kicked against an attempt by the management to award a $40,000 auditing of the year 2000 and 2001 accounts of the company to Messrs Ernest and Young, a subsidiary to the firm that was engaged to conduct the forensic auditing for the airline.

"Apart from the $40,000, which we considered to be astronomical, it raises a lot of suspicions for the subsidiary of the firm that conducted the forensic auditing into the operations of the airline to be given a contract which was not open to competitive bidding," one of the leading member of the airline's local union told Chronicle.