The Threat Of Redundancies In Ghana
by a Special Correspondent
The present labour upheavals in Ghana are the direct result of the policies of Rawlings himself and his government... management staffs have been attacked, beaten up and sacked; foreign owned companies and even some owned by Ghanaians were forcibly taken over with violence by the workers, accounts of businessmen were frozen and T. U. C. leaders replaced with radicals.An article that appeared in the November 7th, 1983 issue of 'West Africa' magazine draws attention to the current redundancies being declared in almost all the industrial and commercial houses as well as in government establishments and corporations in Ghana. On top of the list are the Ghana Textiles Printers and the Juapong Textiles Limited right down to the CFAO, Afromedia, Valco and 14 other very important and long standing traditional business houses. Nothing was said about employment in the farms or in the agricultural sector.
The article then proceeds to appor- tion blame for this catastrophe on foreigners (especially the multi- nationals) connected with the owner- ship and operation of the industrial and commercial houses, Entrepreneurs in general, officials of the government, particularly those in the Labour Department. It even ridiculously blames previous governments for events that took place as long ago as 1966 which have no bearing on the present situation, and the absence of up to date statistical data.
But the truth must be told. The present labour upheavals in Ghana are the direct result of the policies of Rawlings himself and his government. Rawlings' first nationwide declaration on seizing power on January 1st, 1982 was "POWER BELONGS TO THE PEOPLE". He then immediately created the workers defence committees (WDCs) in every workplace and challenged them to use that POWER. The workers in response set themselves loose on the Managing Directors, Directors, Managers and Supervisors in the government corporations, including the banks, and on the Employers in the private sectors. The following are but a few of the actual incidents that took place right from the beginning of the revolution:
At the Unilever Soap Works in Tema, one of the largest factories in Ghana, the workers armed with rocks and sticks and pieces of iron and anything they could lay their hands on, suddenly attacked the Engineering and Management Staff. Of those who could not escape in time, one engineer was killed and another lost an eye in spite of his being rushed to a special hospital in Britain for emergency treatment. Not only did the government fail to punish the culprits but they compelled the owners of the factory to maintain them in their jobs and on their payroll where apparently they still are. The incipient anarchy has now become the order of the day.
After the blanket radio and television announcements that all Boards of Directors of all government corporations and bodies, including the banks, had been dissolved "with immediate effect" the workers beat up many of the Management staffs, particularly those that were known to be good and strict disciplinarians, and locked out quite a number of them. The government never intervened and those locked out in this way have permanently lost their jobs.
Many foreign owned companies and even some of those owned by Ghanaians were forcibly taken over with violence by the workers. Most of the foreign owners were thus forced to abandon their enterprises which have now disintegrated for want of technical supervision.
Three Engineers and Managers of international calibre of Valco, the largest industrial company in Ghana, just within the first days of the revolution, were very rudely marched off from their offices by soldiers at gunpoint with fixed bayonets and deported because a 'radio transmitter' was found in their office and one of them had a diary in which he had recorded the events of the coup for, as he explained, historical reasons. But for the timely intervention of their governments United States and West Germany they could have been killed or at least imprisoned indefinitely without trial as happened in the case of Ghanaians in similar circumstances. And yet it was known that the company had always had a radio transmitter for internal communication with its branches scattered within Ghana. For this and other reasons this huge dollar earning enterprise is now completely closed down, rendering thousands of workers redundant.
Many businessmen and merchants who were having £50,000 or more in their banking accounts had their accounts frozen. They were subsequently hauled before the so-called Citizens Vetting Committees where, on the pretext that they had acquired their wealth illegally, or had engaged in trade malpractices, or evaded income taxes and what have you, they were either sentenced to very long prison terms or fined huge amounts (record fine in Kumasi was over £10,000,000). This has now become a permanent feature of the Ghana scene.
The government sent armed men to take over the Trade Union Head- quarters in Accra. They sacked all the former trade union leaders and instal- led their own radicals to replace them so as to use them in further persecution of the "unwanted capitalists". The intervention by the ILO was ignored.
And so on and so on.
It should have occurred to the government then that their measures would inevitably lead to the redundancies in which the country is now engulfed.
Before the coup on December 31st, 1981, many factories had already been operating at less than 50% capacity; some as low as 10 to 20% because of want of raw materials, spare parts and replacement plants. Despite this, Rawlings' government wasted no time in withdrawing all the import licences that had already been issued, thus perpetuating the shortages of the inputs to get the factories working. This has led to the closure of most of them.
Silent and underutilised factories cannot fill market stalls with goods.
This and the stoppage of importation of consumer goods have left the commercial houses with nothing to sell to justify keeping their workers on their payroll. So the actual redundancies surfaced just four months after the coup. It was then that the employers in all the private sectors attempted to lay off staffs and workers who had become redundant. The government intervened in April 1982 with a decree making the layoffs an offence.
REMEDIES
Among the remedies then proposed by the government was that the redun- dant labour from the factories should be redeployed by their employers on farms for the production of raw agricultural materials required by their factories! At a meeting in June 1982 between the government on one hand and the Employers' Council and the Chamber of Commerce on the other, the latter pointed out this was impractical for the following reasons among others:i. industrial management and factory workers could hardly convert to farm production units overnight even if the agricultural lands were available and the necessary capital and farm inputs would be provided.
ii. it would take a very long period in most cases for the raw materials to reach maturity and so it would lead to bankruptcies if redundant labour were meanwhile kept on. At any rate, there was already a glut of labour on the farms who could be organised to produce the raw materials required. It is not true as stated in the article under review that "managements' objection to redeploy workers on their farms seems to have been the fact that growing cotton" (for instance in the case of the Unilever subsidiaries) "would destroy long established managements through which subsidiaries elsewhere supplied cotton for the Ghana operations such as Senegal". But the government flatly refused to accept the employer's point of view.
The fact that laying off redundant labour can no longer be delayed is because even those enterprises that were wealthy enough to afford keeping their workers on in spite of non production, must have by now exhausted whatever profits they might have put into reserve funds to meet just this sort of contingencies and emergencies, and therefore at this stage there is nothing else they can do. Besides, as the government has been diverting what little merchandise or food aid items that become available into the hands of the same workers for distribution through the workers' defence committees and the newly created people's shop instead of through the regular commercial houses, the latter have nothing to sell to get any income for their workers' wages or even for the payment of income tax to the government itself.
that "...in Ghana...the export sector, that is the cocoa, gold, manganese and timber industries...are in a state of almost total collapse..." Why so? Who is to blame for this? It would not be surprising if the government in its perpetual search for scapegoats for all its shortcomings and gross mismanage- ment, would blame the heavily overtaxed and underpaid farmers as well as the mining and timber industries. Even though almost all the mining and the timber industries have been nationalised by the same government.
DEVALUATION
This apart, surely the country has continued to export large quantities of cocoa and other products throughout the period this government has been in control. What have they done with the foreign currency thus earned? If, as they have denied having used the money for the importation of armaments to keep the people under forced control, what then have they done with the proceeds from the exports? Was it necessary to wait for the $377 million loan from the IMF before import licences could be issued?In spite of the very steep devaluation of the cedi from C2.75 to C30.00 to $1.00 the producer price paid to the farmers for their export crops has remained the same as before the devalua- tion. Similarly, salaries and wages (except the workers whose daily wages have been increased from C12 to C25) have not been adjusted. The farmer is still receiving an equivalent of £12,000 per ton for his cocoa which is, by the official rate of exchange, is only $300 per ton, or by the non-official rate of exchange now prevailing in Accra, is equivalent to $100. The present inter- national price of cocoa is around $2,000 to $2,200 per ton. But as the banks would not exchange foreign currency for the cedi, the only avenue to get this cedi exchanged is the non official one fluctuating between C115 to C125 to the dollar! In other words, using the only avenue available to him to exchange his cedis, the farmer receives only $100 for his ton of cocoa, or not more than 5% of the inter- national price for his cocoa. Is it there- fore surprising that the export of cocoa is "in a state of almost total collapse"?
The highest monthly take-home pay of any government or public employee is still £1,000 or $8.50 at the prevailing non-official exchange. A recent article that appeared in the same journal West Africa - calculated that the average Ghanaian family would require C15,000 a month to survive. With the acute scarcity of vehicles and practically non-availability of fuel, the average take home pay cannot even meet transport expenses for the daily attendance of business. So already, with or without redundancy lay-offs, most employees in Accra have been staying away from their workplaces, some turning up at the end of the month only to collect the pittance of pay. The government is surprised that industry and commerce after waiting years to obtain import licences just issued to them are not willing to utilise them. An ultimatum was issued that if the licences were not utilised within 48 hours they would be nullified! The article in question further states
It does not require much intelligence or common sense to realise that among the reasons the importers are hesitating are:
With the 11 times devaluation of the cedi which would make every imported raw material or merchandise cost 11 times as before, apart from the 30% excise or customs duty to be levied, industry and commerce cannot imagine how the farmers and other consumers without any corresponding adjustments upwards in their income can afford the new prices of imported commodities.
For the past 2 years most companies have been forced by the government to maintain and pay their workers, who were sitting idle anyway. This has exhausted their capital in most cases. Therefore they cannot comply with the rule imposed by the same government that all imports should be prepaid in advance. Even the banks themselves have no funds to lend to the prospective importers since the "citizens" with credits of C50,000 in their bank account have been so harassed by the citizens vetting committees of the Rawlings' government that they are no longer placing their money with the banks.
PATIENCE
As has been demanded by the churches, the students, the professionals and almost all shades of opinion in Ghana, the only salvation for Ghana is for the present military government to bow out gracefully before it is too late.Given the above situation the exodus of all Ghanaians who can leave the country as the only escape from their abject misery has become a flood. Those left behind have only been held down by a juggernaut of an oppressive military brutality and oppression. How much longer the Ghanaian can continue to endure this is anybody's guess. The docility and patience of the Ghanaian is not everlasting elastic.
Although I am a Ghanaian I would strongly urge those "15 traditional and non-traditional donors (including the United States of America) and external financial establishments..." who would have met in Paris on November 24th, 1983 "to discuss how best to help Ghana financially" or even to give food aid, to refrain from doing so. Under the present government and their economic programmes and political orientation, no project would ever become viable and every investment stands the risk of being lost. Any food aid items, as has already been demonstrated, would first go to feed the troops of Rawlings, the very apparatus now being used for the oppression of the people of Ghana.
What all Ghanaians, both at home and abroad, are crying and praying for, at this point in time, is rather a Grenada type of operation for their rescue and liberation.
