Energy Minister Boakye Agyarko has responded to the call by workers of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) on the demand for a redundancy pay. The Minister says the workers must prepare to leave their jobs if they receive their redundancy pay.

Workers of ECG on Tuesday picketed at the at the premises of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), demanding for severance pay for ECG staff before they participate in the privatization of ECG under the Millennium Power Compact Two programme.

However, the Minister in his response said: “…If you decide to leave ECG, then you will be paid your severance, but you should not have the expectation or guarantee that the new company will take you on.

You have made a decision to sever your relations with ECG, and it should not put you in faithful expectation that going forward you have a job with the new company. So it is opened, all the ECG workers who want to leave and not join the new company are at liberty to do so and their severance so arranged.”

“But it is not going to be a collective bargaining situation where all 6,500 ECG workers are paid the severance and then transferred to the new company. You are at liberty to transfer yourself to the new company and carry with you all the benefits from ECG and continue accruing new benefits.

You are equally at liberty to say that I want to wash my hands off ECG and go my own way,” he added