...EVIDENCE OF POOR JUDGEMENT BY NPP

Workers of Vodafone Ghana are cursing their stars for supporting the kufour led administration to sell Ghana Telecom in the year 2007 amidst opposition from patriotic Ghanaians who thought the deal will not bring any benefit to the workers and the country at large.

The National Democratic Congress (NDC) then in opposition strongly kicked against the sale because it was not good and had no value for money but the former kufour government and the majority in parliament failed to see reason and went ahead with their poor judgement.

This valuable national asset was disposed of in a desperate move to support budget and other recurrent expenditure instead of investing in long term infrastructure to make up for this strategic viable asset in a fast growing telecom industry.

Contrary to assurances received from both the New Patriotic Party (NPP) government and the new owners that no worker would suffer any job loss, thousands of innocent Ghanaian workers in Vodafone have been sacked since they took over the operations. They have been treated with contempt and sheer wickedness!

Management of Vodafone Ghana bragged that the company inherited Ghana telecom at a time when it had been unprofitable for 26years, but in just three years Vodafone is recording impressive operational profits. The company acquired 70% shares in Ghana Telecom at US$900,000 in 2006 and has laid off more than 3000 workers including the latest 191 victims on the block so that the owners can make their super profit and repatriate it to live like Arabian kings, while innocent former Ghanaian workers are wallowing in poverty and hunger . The company came to meet dedicated staff strength of 4500 it promised of maintaining during the negotiations.

Workers have accused the company of anti-Ghanaian tendencies where a one-time Head of Sales and Distribution, Amon Jere had given the status of distributorship to his cronies sideling Ghanaians. In August 2009 by The Trade Union Congress (TUC) it took a decision to lay off 950 employees in a compulsory redundancy programme contrary to the legal practices of the country’s labour relations.

General Secretary of the TUC at the time, Mr. Kofi Abraham, accused the company of not exhausting the legal procedures but rather using intimidation and compulsion which he described as unfair to the workers.

According to him, management of Vodafone disregarded the laid-down procedures to redundancy by not meeting with the union to discuss it before taking action.

Sources close to the company revealed that Vodafone Ghana Ltd has served 191 one hundred and ninety one workers with notice of termination in the first week of October 2012 and plans are far advanced to hand over a bitter Christmas pill to another batch of workers.

This inhuman treatment is allegedly being carried out by the foreign owner with a strong backing from Mr. Michael Nii Adjei who joined the company from Tigo Ghana, as Head of Sales until becoming the Commercial Director in August.2012 after a secret meeting with employers in the UK.

The source indicated that worker morale is low and are living in perpetual fear since the dismissal hammer is being used as intimidation tool for a discriminatory and agenda to kick nine hundred (900) of the current staff. Worker say the foreign owners prefer to use Ghanaian as a surrogates to do their dirty work for them like the ‘animal farm’ situation who sing to the tune of the whites.

They alleged that the new Commercial Director under the pretext of downsizing the company has sacked long serving and experienced employees and rather go for cronies from Tigo.

They complain about the inhuman treatment meted out to dismiss staff. The modus operandi is that, workers while at the workplace are handed dismissal letters; then Security/macho men then confiscate company car keys if they have been given a car, seize company lap tops and computers. They are escorted outside the premises and told to go home for good! This dehumanizing treatment according to sources is being championed by Mr. Michael Nii Boye Adjei to win more favour. The source alleges that despite the sale of Ghana Telecom to Vodafone, the network platform has not been expanded properly and is choked and instead of investing in technology to expand the network platform, Vodafone Ghana is removing all SIM cards that they see as not being regularly used on their system and re-selling it to other customers creating a mess in the system. They said management instead of expanding facilities to attract customers are rather putting undue pressure on employees to meet outrageous and unrealistic targets in its attempt to sell more chips or SIM cards and make as much money as possible from Ghanaians.

Last year, the NCA penalized Vodafone as a result of poor service, call drops, choked and bad network. Workers are victimized when they complained that Vodafone needed to improve their network platform and build more cell sites. The intention of the current Managing Director, Mr. Kyle Whitehill is to hide behind Mr. Michael Nii Adjei, his Ghanaian ‘face’ to sack more workers and use him to silence and intimidate his fellow workers. The managing director pays Mr. Michael Nii Adjei several thousands of dollars plus commissions to do this dirty work for him and so he is very glad to execute the agenda without any consideration of his fellow Ghanaians. The irony is that this Managing director tried to use the former Commercial Director to execute this agenda of sacking workers but he flatly refused. He was then quickly transferred out of Ghana and a Ghanaian stooge in the person of Michael Adjei was brought in to torment his own fellow Ghanaians.

Vodafone workers are appealing to the government to step in to avert and alleviate their suffering and prevent them from being rendered jobless. Many of the dismissed workers stated that they will now be unable to fend for their families and pay the school fees of their children. They are appealing to the NDC government and other interested parties to step in and investigate the actions of the Managing director Mr. Kyle Whitehill and the Commercial Director, Mr. Michael Nii Boye Adjei of Vodafone Ghana. Ghanaians must not be allowed to be treated like dirt and made to suffer like this whilst living in their own country.