Chief Executive Officer of Standard Chartered Bank Ghana, Kweku Bedu-Addo risks going to jail,
if he fails to purge himself by June 6th, 2016, of a contempt conviction slapped on him by an Accra High court on Wednesday.
The court cited Kweku Bedu-Addo for contempt after Standard Chartered Bank failed to obey the court’s order restraining them from going ahead with a planned redundancy exercise.
The Stanchart boss is not only the staff of the bank in trouble for violating the court, the bank’s Head of HR West Africa Rosie Ebe-Arthur has also been cited in the contempt case.She together with her boss are to pay 20,000 cedis each by June 6th, 2016, or be imprisoned for 21 days.
Some workers of Standard Chartered bank, who were be laid off this year, dragged the bank to court over the severance package being offered them.
The court, presided over by Justice Kwaku Arkaah – Boafo, held that the bank’s CEO as well as its Head of Human Resource woefully failed to obey the court’s order of interlocutory injunction filed by the plaintiffs, seeking to restrain the bank from going ahead on the 29th of January, 2016, to implement an MOU it signed with the Union of Industry Commerce and Finance (UNICOF) who negotiated on behalf of the workers.
According to the writ filed by the workers the said MOU signed on their behalf by UNICOF is fraudulent and does not have their requisite mandate and input.
They add that the deal will see the workers lose about half of their entitlements due them following the number of years they have worked at the bank.
The latest development means the bank may have to recall the workers who were laid off and also put on hold the implementation of the MOU following its contention in court.
By: Norvan Acquah – Hayford
