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Opinions of Thursday, 21 March 2019

Columnist: Rockson Adofo

Do the management of Zoomlion abide by the Ghana national minimum wage?

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Zoomlion to the best of my knowledge is a cleaning company. It has signed a contract with the government of Ghana to clean up the streets and the public places including the markets in the major cities and towns in Ghana, I should think.

In this publication, let me stress that I am not interested in the details of the terms of contract as signed between Zoomlion and the government. There is rubbish strewn over large areas of public places in the cities with the roads and gutters within the busy areas of the cities and towns always littered, and choking with non-biodegradable plastic bags and bottles. However, Zoomlion has signed a contract with the government to clean up such areas, if I am right.

This publication is more about the monthly wages drawn by the workers of Zoomlion. When I was first informed by one of my junior brothers that some workers of Zoomlion draw a monthly net pay of GHS50.00 (Fifty Ghana Cedis), I could not believe him and what I was hearing. He mentioned names of some of the company's workers in Kumawu to insist on the veracity of his assertion. As I could not believe what I was hearing, as shocking as it was to me, I phoned to someone in Kumawu to crosscheck the information. The person confirmed that a friend of hers working for Zoomlion takes home GHS50.00 a month. She further said, at times the workers may not get their wages for six months but they still have to go to work.

Are the management of Zoomlion aware of Ghana's daily minimum wage for year 2019? Do they pay their employees the minimum wage as fixed by the government? If they do, how come that some of their workers who go to work every working day of the week without any absence from work take home a monthly wage of GHS50.00? What deductions are made from their gross income to bring it to that paltry net sum of GHS50.00? What a shock!

Is Zoomlion exempted from paying its workers the national minimum wage? Could the Minister for Labour and Public Welfare or whatever he/she is called and the Ghana Trades Union Congress please explain to me why this discrepancy in pay at Zoomlion as against the prescribed national minimum wage payment by the government?

As far as I know, minimum wage must be paid to both public and private workers in the nation. If the management of Zoomlion do pay the workers the minimum wage, there is no way that a worker will take home GHS50.00 a month, regardless of the deductions made from their pay toward other statutory obligations. The deductions should not exceed half of the monthly wages of an employee drawing the basic monthly minimum wage.

To explain it better to my Ghanaian compatriots abroad, Zoomlion pays their employees on minimum wage a paltry take home sum of about US$10.00 or £8.00 or 9 Euros a month. Mind you, it is not an hourly rate or a day's pay but for a whole month!

With such an insulting to one's intelligence amount paid to the low-paid workers at Zoomlion, how does the government explain to discerning Ghanaians the four-yearly US$50,000+ car loan paid to each of our mostly non-performing parliamentarians? How does the government again explain the huge ex-gratia paid to them at the end of the life of every parliament, thus, every four years, when a parliamentarian loses their seat? What a joke!

Many a politician or a highly-placed public service head has embezzled huge sum of money but they are let off the hook due to the weakness in applying the laws. The money so embezzled by our leaders can help pay some workers decent monthly wage.

How much does a round trip on "trotro" to work cost a city dweller? If a Zoomlion worker in say, Kumasi is paid GHS50.00 or GHS200.00 a month, how can the person survive without indulging him or herself in other corrupt practices to make ends meet?

If we fail to get leaders like Paul Kagame of Rwanda and John Joseph Magufuli of Tanzania in Ghana, then it will have to take people's uprising to reverse the abuses of power by the few politicians and the public service heads to bring socio-economic sanity to Ghana for the welfare of the majority of Ghanaians, if not for everybody.

His Excellency Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has good intentions and is trying his hardest but the saboteurs within his government and party seem to be many and are not helping him.

Find below the information on Ghana minimum wage as carved out of the internet.

“Minimum Wage – Ghana

Minimum wage with effect from Jan 01, 2019 till Dec 31, 2019

The amounts are in Ghanaian Cedi.

Per Day

National Minimum Wage

10.65

Working hours

Days per week specified: 5.0

Hours per week specified: 40

Monthly minimum wage figures are calculated as daily minimum wage × 27 days.

Where a worker in an undertaking works after the hours of work fixed by the rules of that undertaking, the additional hours done shall be regarded as overtime work. Notwithstanding, a worker may be required to work beyond the fixed hours of work without additional pay in certain exceptional circumstances including accident threatening human lives or the very existence of the undertaking.

Definitions

In any undertaking, every worker is entitled to not less than fifteen working days leave with full pay in any calendar year of continuous service.

Source

In the Labour Act 651, every worker is entitled to be paid his or her remuneration for public holidays”.

Be a judge for yourself, fellow reader. Crosscheck how much the Zoomlion employees sweeping the streets and the markets in various cities and towns paid. My information is based on that of Kumawu.

I shall be back to deal with this topic and many more if we really expect Ghana to move forward and in the direction that will benefit many if not all.