Secretary of the Ghana Toll Workers, Edward Duncan, has revealed that the association has postponed its intended demonstration to register its displeasure over delayed severance pay.

According to him, after consulting with the Ghana Police Service over the place of convergence and other modalities for the demonstration, the Police indicated that due to the heightened tension with threats of terrorism in the country, some areas and places in the country have been designated as security zones. As such, the toll workers cannot converge at GBC and subsequently “mass up around the Jubilee House”.

“Actually there’s been some few changes. Tomorrow, Thursday, it will not come on because initially we wanted to start from Obra Spot and we changed for our members to gather at opposite GBC considering the fact that most of members are physically challenged, so walking all the way to Jubilee House will be a problem. So, we decided to meet opposite GBC…”
Edward Duncan

Mr Duncan stated that as an alternative, the Police suggested the group gather at the Independence Square and representatives from Jubilee House will be sent to take their petition since “we intend to present the petition to His Excellency the President”. However, he expressed that the suggestion did not sit well with leadership of the association as they reckoned its best to personally deliver the petition to the President.

“So, the agreement on where our members should gather and all that, we didn’t conclude it. So, we had to call off tomorrow’s march to Jubilee House and speak to our members and agree or arrange a place where we’ll gather and also speak to the police so the police will accept so that we can go ahead with that march…”
Edward Duncan

Conditions of workers

Commenting on the state of workers, Mr Duncan indicated that members are in a “tight situation right now”. He opined that most often than not, when they are confronted with challenges, they have to rely on and ask for help from the leadership.

“So, I have heard numerous situation of hardships that they are going through. People’s relationships are in tatters because of these things, people’s children are home, some have been evicted from their homes… So, we are really in a tight situation. Considering this economic situation too… those who are even working and getting salaries are having difficulties, how much more those of us who are not working.”
Edward Duncan

The Secretary of the Ghana Toll Workers expressed that government has since January this year, defaulted in payment of severance pay to workers. He revealed that about “nineteen major tolls were given on contract to a private company to manage”, and upon several engagement with the company since 17^th of November last year, nothing has been done about it.

Mr Duncan noted that constant engagement with the company made them feel “like the power is not really in their hands to do anything for us”.

“We proceeded to engage the ministry of roads and highways and [on] two different occasions, we had the opportunity to speak to the minister himself on this matter. Whenever we speak to them, all they tell us is that they will pay us as they promised earlier on; that every month they’ll find an alternative livelihood for us. They paid in November and December but from January till now, not even a single cedi has been given to any of our members and we are well over 800 workers manning the tollbooths…”
Edward Duncan