Organised labour losing hope over continued energy crisis
Organised labour is beginning to lose hope due to the government’s delay in fixing the energy crisis, the Secretary-General of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), Mr Kofi Asamoah, has stated.
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He explained that the loss of hope stemmed from the fact that workers’ finances had been stretched to the limit as a result of high inflation, the rising living cost and high income taxes.
Power crisis
In his 2015 May Day address to workers in Accra yesterday, Mr Asamoah said many workers now survived on personal loans contracted from banks at a very high interest rate and added that businesses were also stretched to the limit since their owners had to use generators to power their businesses.
The day was marked on the theme: “Addressing the Energy Crisis: The Role of Organised Labour.”
“We are aware of measures you and your government are taking to deal with the energy crisis but it is taking too long to fix it,” Mr Asamoah said, adding that what started almost three years ago as energy crisis was now becoming a severe economic crisis.
In view of the crisis, the TUC boss said the country was witnessing a significant drop in its gross domestic product and the depreciation of the local currency.
According to him, Ghana was gradually, but surely, losing its status as a preferred investment destination in the sub-region occasioned by the erratic and unreliable power delivery.
“The rising inflation and high cost of living is driving more Ghanaians into poverty and destitution. Mr President, we should do everything in our power to prevent the crisis from degenerating into a social and political crisis,” Mr Asamoah stated, while expressing organised labour’s readiness to work with the government to solve the crisis.
Mr Asamoah was of the view that Ghana had enough resources to deal with the problem but noted, “We only need to re-prioritise and redirect resources to the power sector.”
Causes
Attributing the energy crisis to the long period of neglect, the TUC Secretary-General observed that the country had failed over the years to invest in the power infrastructure bequeathed to it by earlier leaders.
“You need to provide the leadership that will take us out of this severe crisis,” Mr Asamoah urged the President.
He asked the government, as part of the long-term measure, to explore alternative sources of power and recommended the development of solar farms and wind turbines for communities without power.
Privatisation
Mr Asamoah cautioned the government not to privatise the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) since that would not solve the energy challenges.
Rather, he said, if all power users, including state agencies, paid their bills on time, the ECG would not need to be privatised.
He recalled a privatisation arrangement in the water sector when a company from South Africa came to make money and left the country without adding any value to the sector.
According to the TUC boss, companies that were willing to produce and distribute power in the country should be allowed to establish their own companies, stressing that “public assets must remain public.”
“Privatisation only serves the interest of profit-hungry investors. It will not address our energy crisis,” he averred.
Mr Asamoah similarly served notice of organised labour’s resolve to resist any attempt to privatise the Agricultural Development Bank, contending that the bank was established to help develop agriculture which remained the backbone of the economy.
IMF programme
Turning the spotlight on the government’s decision to sign on to an IMF programme, the head of the TUC reiterated organised labour’s opposition to the programme with the IMF and its conditionalities.
Mr Asamoah explained that its opposition to the IMF stemmed from the fact that in the last 30 years Ghana’s economic and social policies had been based on IMF policies but the economy still remained in bad shape.
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He stated that the IMF was originally created to serve the interest of advanced countries by overseeing the return of the industrialised world to orderly multilateral trade and payments.
Against that backdrop, he pointed out that with the inclusion of the developing world, given their peculiar problems of underdevelopment and mass poverty, the IMF had been confounded with respect to ideas.
Mr Asamoah underscored the fact that the IMF had never been able to come to terms with the unique problems of the developing world.
Sanitation
Mr Asamoah commended the government for instituting the National Sanitation Day and called on all workers in Bolgatanga, which takes its turn today, and others across the country to participate in the clean-up activities.
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He gave the assurance that organised labour would work with the government to improve sanitation in all parts of the country.
Writer’s email: sebastian.syme4@gmail.com