Expatriates are being paid 800 percent more than their local colleagues working on the FPSO Kwame Nkrumah, Deputy General Secretary of the general transport petroleum and chemical workers union has told STARR NEWS.

“It’s an issue that all of us in this country must rise up against. How much is the expat being paid? Eight hundred percent difference in between the salaries of the expat and Ghanaians,” Francis Sallah said.

His claim follows the dismissal of 28 Ghanaians working on the FPSO after they went on what Union leaders have described as a peaceful withdrawal of services in protest to pay disparities.

The workers claim though some of them have higher qualifications than their expatriate colleagues and also do more arduous and riskier jobs, they take far less remuneration.

The Petroleum Commission intervened in the matter in an attempt to resolve the impasse. A Memorandum of Understanding was signed between the workers and MODEC – their employer.

However, their refusal to sign an undertaking to be of good behaviour caused their dismissal.