Workers of the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) on Thursday morning locked up their offices and abandoned work to protest against the reinstatement of some of their top managers.
The managers include former Director of Public Affairs of the Commission, Nana Yaa Jantuah.
According to the workers, Nana Yaa Jantuah took her cumulative leave and resigned in May, 2017, but there was a move to bring her back.
The Executive Secretary, Samuel Sarpong and Nana Yaa Jantuah have been at the centre of a BNI investigation over some financial malfeasance said to have taken place at the commission.
Mr Sarpong was under investigations for allegedly transferring about GH¢435,087 into his personal accounts while Nana Yaa Jantuah was also interrogated by the BNI on allegations she spent GH¢120,000 on 350 hampers for Christmas.
Even before the investigations are over, the workers have demanded that the two must be made to stand aside.
Speaking to an Accra based radio station, Starr FM on Thursday, the chairman of PURC Workers Union, Alhaji Abukari Jabaru said, “Nana Yaa wrote that she was taking her cumulative leave. Once you have terminal leave you are not supposed to be called to attend to issues because you have to be preparing other people to take over. Unless you are telling us that we don’t have competent hands and if we don’t have, what was she doing? She should have prepared people to succeed her”.
He added that she later tendered in her resignation which is supposed to take effect from November.
He said although Nana Yaa was on leave, she has been attending “illegal” meetings at the premises with some sub committees since Monday, which meetings he said did not favour the workers.
“There have been meetings… Yesterday another sub board came and met and we were quiet about it, and today we heard another group was coming to meet. All was not in the interest of staff because we gave them our collective agreement proposal and they said they couldn’t do anything about it”.
Another worker also claimed “She does not have respect for anybody and if she has turned in her resignation she should continue to be there. The PURC is not for the father or the mother, we are all from different parts and we converge here and we work. If she thinks she is no more comfortable working with PURC and she has resigned she should continue to be wherever she is”.
The workers also called on the government to constitute a governing board for the commission to ensure its effective operations.
<<Print>>