General Secretary of the Industrial and Commercial Workers Union (ICU), Solomon Kotei has assured workers of the New Times Corporation that the Union will work together with the appropriate authorities to ensure that the alleged mismanagement at the Corporation ends.
Addressing the workers during a demonstration to demand the removal of the Corporation’s Managing Director, Mr Kotei said the action taken by workers was not wrong as it only shows how fed up they are with the negligence of management.
He said, “We will catalogue the issues and take them to the sector minister as it stands now. We are not putting ourselves before the labour commission because we know the structures of this particular enterprise.”
He added, “We will not sit down and allow one person to come and see the demise of this great institutions.”
Mr Kotei said the decision by management to print the Corporation’s papers at Graphic, their main competitor was draining its little funds.
“From nowhere we were told we are rebranding the paper, we thought we will bring some efficiency and some profitability to this particular arrangement only for us to go and submit to our main competitor and ask our main competitor to do the printing for us and on daily basis we don’t pay less than 17,300”.
He urged the workers to return to work and assured them the MD will not be allowed entry into the premises.
President of the Ghana Journalists Association, Affail Monney also assured that the association will work together with stakeholders to address the various issues the workers have raised with the needed urgency.
He said, “Times is a key player in this industry, from history up to now you have played a prominent role and you still have a role to play so our plead is that please get back to work, your issues will receive the highest attention”.
The workers accused the MD of taking over the work of the national paper’s Chief Accountant, Chief Procurement Officer and Chief Auditor and disrespecting procurement processes of the corporation in the procurement of a Honda Pilot SUV for herself.
