ICU tells government to be sensitive to industries

One way government can save local industries from folding-up is through relieving them from high tariff imposition, Mr Solomon Kotey, General Secretary of the Industrial and Commercial Workers Union (ICU), has said.
With high tariff, he explained that industries would be confronted with soaring re-current expenditure and overhead expenses leading to redundancies, unemployment, impoverishment and associated untold hardships to those who by no fault of theirs had been sacked.

Speaking with the Ghana News Agency on Thursday, Mr Kotei therefore called on government to be more sensitive to issues that could affect the development of local industries and businesses.

As a result of increase in tariff, he said, industry was virtually grinding to a halt and resorting to redundancy. He added that instead of reducing the stress of redundant workers, they were engaged on casual basis and being paid a quarter of what they were receiving when in permanent employment.

Mr Kotey said for that reasons it was difficult for ICU, which is an affiliate of the Trades Union Congress, to negotiate for better conditions of service for members of the union.

He said today local businesses’ products were finding it difficult to compete with foreign goods being dumped into the country.

Mr Kotey also called on providers of utility services to explain to Ghanaians the circumstances that led to the intermittent power outages, pipe borne water supply, saying that if government subsidies were not forthcoming or being withdrawn, the citizens must be told.

Source: GNA