General Secretary of the Toll Workers Association of Ghana, Edward Duncan, has expressed disappointment in government’s seeming negligence over the state of tollbooth workers in the country.
According to him, the Association is disappointed in the budget reading by the finance minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, as it failed to address the hardship endured by toll workers laid off due to the cessation of toll collection at various tollbooths in the country. He revealed that some members were at the parliament house yesterday in anticipation of some good news from the government regarding their predicament.
“… It feels like our leaders do not really feel the pain that we are going through because if they did, they won’t be juggling us like this. People’s lives have been lost due to this issue, people’s marriages are falling apart, people’s children are at home, people cannot pay rent… We are in a difficult situation and we’ve communicated this to the honourable minister for roads and highways the last time we had a meeting with him.”
Edward Duncan
Mr Duncan noted that the Association has on several occasions petitioned the minister of roads and highway to address the growing hardships among members. He highlighted that the minister in their last engagement sympathised with members although it’s been over three months with no action being taken.
“We were hoping that if really he sympathised with us, in the cabinet meetings he’s had, he would propose that they open the toll.”
Edward Duncan
Addressing toll workers concerns
Commenting on the statement by the deputy minister for roads and highways, Stephen Jalulah, which revealed that government has no contractual agreement with toll workers, Mr Duncan noted that “there’s anger, rage and it’s laughable” listening to the minister talk.
He questioned why Mr Jalulah will make comments such as “paying us is causing financial loss to the state” when the ministry had “promised us that you are going to cease our operations and you are going to pay us until you reassign us”.
“Telling us that giving us salaries to survive on and live on is causing financial loss to the state; can we say same for the honourable minister for roads and highways?
Edward Duncan
Mr Duncan concerted that although toll workers’ recruitment was done by a private entity, for the deputy roads minister to suggest that toll workers’ contract ended in December 2021 “is neither here nor there because nothing shows that our contract is supposed to end in December 2021”.
Justifying his stance, he explained that the private contractor which is Tolls and Roads Management Limited, gave a termination letter dated the 17th of June, 2022, to workers of the tollbooths.
“What he is saying is that we were put on a six months contract and it was subject to renewal based upon your performance. In actual fact, the contract was never renewed and I started working in 2019, so it was not renewed. So, the assumption was that we were taken on permanently…”
Edward Duncan
The General Secretary of the Toll Workers Association of Ghana emphasized that due to the cumbersome nature of the reassignment by government, economic crisis in the country and the seeming inability to find any alternative livelihood, it has requested government to reinstate members in the interim.
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