…300 angry workers resurrect demo threat
By Ernest KISSIEDU
Workers of the Textiles, Garment and Leather Employees Union (TGLEU) are set on a collision course as they are infuriated by a seeming trickery from the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MOTI).
The Ministry had promised to publish policy guidelines to regulate importation and sale of African textile prints to forestall counterfeiting, smuggling and dumping of fake fabrics onto the markets; factors that have, over the years, destroyed the local manufacturing industry to the detriment of workers and the Ghanaian economy.
Business Day Ghana learned that the deadline given by the Ministry for the release of the policy guideline was 30th June, 2017 but all efforts by TGLEU to get explanation for the undue delays have proven futile.
Under the circumstances, the Union is compelled to express its frustrations by staging protestations on Wednesday 12th and Thursday 13th July, 2017 in Accra.
About 300 workers are expected to demonstrate on Wednesday from 9:30am to 12:00pm, commencing from Nkrumah Circle (former Obra Spot) through Farisco (Adabraka), Trades Union Congress (TUC), Ministries, Lotteries to Accra Hearts of Oak Park.
In addition, some 50 workers would picket at the Ministry of Trade and Industry forecourt from 8:00am to 12pm on Thursday and Friday.
Speaking to Business Day Ghana, the General Secretary of Ghana Federation of Labour (GFL), Mr. Abraham Koomson, suspected that government was playing tricks with the Union.
“During the 2016 electioneering campaign, they promised traders the task force would be abolished if voted to power. It’s a big problem for them to reverse the decision. We have to expose any politician who gambles with the economy,” he stressed.
According to Mr. Koomson, factory owners were not happy when the Union postponed the demonstration in May because every passing day costs them huge losses as they paid their employees for no productive work.
“They were so annoyed that successive governments have not committed to addressing the problems facing the textiles sector even though they knew about the causes. Politicians in Africa have a different understanding of economic development of a country.”
The TGLEU suspected delaying tactics on the part of government to allow the illicit money making traders to continue with their business.
In May, the Union had hinted that more workers in the textiles industry are expected to be laid-off as a result of the non-performance of the sector.
“Anything can happen to even the 1,500 workers at any point in time. The industry is not performing so they may have to also go home,” the Union had revealed to the Business Day Ghana in an interview.
This is as a result of the pace of smuggling of cheap and fake prints from China, which is collapsing the local industry.
Many of these smugglers don’t pay appropriate duties and taxes to the government. Whereas the manufacturers are paying VAT, health insurance and social security contribution of workers and corporate taxes, the smugglers don’t pay anything.
In early June, the Government indicated its intention to share monies set aside as ‘Stimulus Package’ to the various local businesses and companies to revamp their respective sectors.
Though the stipulated amount to be allocated was not known, industry players had said the amount involved was quite substantial.
However, it was also not very clear the purposes for which these funds were to be allocated; whether for the purchases of raw materials, equipment revamping or settling conditions of service for workers which includes salaries and emolument packages.
The various industries had been given some questionnaires to fill and submit for them to be assessed before knowing whether they qualified to receive these funds from government.
Earlier, in March, government had disclosed that it had set aside over GHC100 million under the ‘stimulus package’ introduced in the 2017 budget aimed at reviving distressed companies.
This package was to support some of these local businesses and companies that struggled during the past four years under ‘dumsor’ and eventually laid-off a lot of workers at the time.
Monies from the ‘stimulus package’ are expected to be expended under what the new government calls the National Industrial Revitalization Programme.
Beneficiary companies would be selected based on a rigorous vetting process.
Meanwhile, the TGLEU had believed that government needed to focus on revamping existing industries instead of channeling resources into the building of new industries whose viability could not be guaranteed.
“Government should plug the loopholes that are making the textile industry uncompetitive. That is the only way to keep us in business and help create more employment for the youth of this country,” the Union had asserted to Business Day Ghana.
Currently, the textiles industry employs about 1,500, a drastic reduction in the population of workers in the 1970s, when the workforce was over 25,000.
