Accra, Jan. 08, GNA - The National Executive Council (NEC) of the Maritime and Dockworkers' Union of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) on Thursday called on the government to support the progressive stance of Africa and other developing countries to chart independent economic path and not to be appendage to developed economies.

It said lack of transparency in the operations of the World Trade Organization (WTO) contributed to the failure of the Cancun trade meeting.

In a statement signed by Mr K. Owusu Afriyie, General Secretary of the Union, NEC expressed concern about the increasing rate of HIV/AIDS. It called for a concerted effort of government, Ghana Health Service, Ghana AIDS Commission and all stakeholders to continuously design appropriate messages that would lead to behavioural changes in sexual relationship and control of the disease.

NEC disagreed with deduction of the 2.5 percent of workers' SSNIT contributions to fund the National Insurance Scheme because it would "defeat the desire of workers to seek an improvement in their pension benefits."

NEC, it said, believed that government had not provided essential operational details of the scheme and "enough explanation as to whether the 2.5 percent deductions would be in perpetuity or a one-off deduction."

It called on the Government to retain the 25 percent Stevedore Operations of the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA) because stevedoring provides substantial revenue to GPHA.

The statement touched on the struggle for ownership of the Express Maritime Services (EMS) and appealed to parties to seek amicable settlement of the issue.

NEC called on the GPHA to reinstate the Stevedoring Licence of the company, saying that the Union is ready to be part of processes that would lead to the company becoming operational.

It appealed to the Minister of Employment and Manpower Development to help resolve the non-payment of salary of workers of the defunct Obourwe Company.

It also expressed concern about the continuing poor operational performance of the Penang Shipyard Building Company, usually referred to as Tema Shipyard, even after its divestiture and condemned the termination of its four employees by the Malaysian Management on the basis of their trade union activities.

The NEC urged the Minister of Employment and Manpower Development to ensure their unconditional reinstatement, stop managements' attempt to contract out core business activities of the company to sub-contractors as a way of making the employees redundant.

On End-Of-Service Benefits (ESB), NEC said in the same manner as parliamentarians get non-contributory ESB so also should be employees in the maritime industry.

NEC called for strict monitoring of the GETFUND.