Consultants order dismissals in G.C.B.
By Poku Adaa
According to reliable sources close to the Public Relations Department of the Board in Accra, the staff levels have been reduced to such a point that effective functioning of the board is being impaired as those workers still at post are anxious and jittery because no one knows when the axe will fall on him. Most of them are reported to be resigning to pre-empt their official dismissals.
All the divisions of the Board, namely, the Head Office Staff, the Produce Buying Company Ltd, the Cocoa Services Division, the Cocoa Marketing Division, the Cocoa Research Unit and the Cocoa Processing Factories are all being subjected to the retrenchment exercise.
Of the 19,000 workers affected it is estimated by the Legal Department of the Board that about seventy per cent will be junior staff status. Already the first batch of 460 senior staff personnel have been laid off. The official govern- ment reason for approving the consult- ants' recommendation appear to be that the Cocoa Board needs to be 're- structured' to ensure high production and viability in the industry.
The Trades Union Congress have apparently sanctioned the dismissal. When contacted an official of the In- dustrial and Commercial Workers Union declined to comment. The Implementation and Monitoring Commit- tee of the Board appointed by the PNDC to wield the axe is hell bent to carry out the exercise to its logical conclusion. The head of the Committee, Flt-Lt. Atiemo, has started to distribute 'termination of employment' letters to workers to quit the company as from October 31, 1985.
The Director of Peat, Marwick & Mitchell, Mr Leslie Zurich, is reported to have said "the pruning exercise is going on fine and it shows considerable progress is being made and we are confident of achieving our objectives in a short time, latest by the end of 1986". The worst aspect of this exercise is that another British consulting team, ULG Consultants, have been given a contract worth an undisclosed sum, believed to be running into millions of dollars, to "help farmers", though in what way remains unclear. Mr Zurich has admitted publicly that the redundancy package is costing the Ghana government about $40 million.
The "restructuring" of the Cocoa Board is being financed from a World Bank Loan of US$193 million granted through the International Development Association. The strategy of using foreign experts in an indigenous industry like cocoa is baffling, but then that is the sort of strings that hangs from World Bank assistance which are turning into heavy economic yokes than aiding economic recovery.
The British consultants are applying the same strategies that decimated the British Steel and Shipping industries a couple of years ago. An official of the Cocoa Board lamented the effects of labour cuts on the efforts of the Cocoa Services Division to rehabilitate cocoa plantations which were devastated by bushfires and drought in 1983.
The official expressed doubts as to whether the skeleton staff which will remain after this massive redundancy exercise can offer the needed extension services which is vital to the industry, especially in the very remote areas. What the Cocoa Board needs and what Leslie Zurich and his team should have done, is the rehabilitation of storage and transport facilities, since nearly 20% of the Board's 700 trucks and vehicles are broken down and off the roads. Sprays, pesticides and other imported inputs are scarce and port facilities inadequate. Pile upon pile of cocoa are locked up in the hinterland and if labour is shed and no transport available, then the industry might be heading towards complete collapse.
The government, in trying to win farmers organisations' support against the workers, introduced a double increase in producer price as a price incentive to encourage farmers to raise output, discourage smuggling and improve the grade of cocoa beans. The hope is that the target of 400,000 tonnes can be achieved with the help of 'foreign experts'.
In 1983/84 the cocoa harvest was down to an all time low of less than 160,000 tonnes.
