‘Sorry’: Railroad workers apologize to Joe Ghartey for unfairly tarnishing their reputation

Politics of Friday December 25, 2020

Source: Melvin Tarlue, contributor

2020-12-25

The leadership of the laid-off Ghana rail workers has offered an unreserved apology to the Minister of Rail Development and Member of Parliament (MP) for the Essikado-Ketan constituency, the Hon. Joe Ghartey, for unfairly tarnishing their hard-earned reputation .

It should be remembered that in the run-up to the general elections on December 7, 2020, the fired workers had resorted to the media, particularly the radio, to maliciously claim that H.E. Ghartey, a former Attorney General and Minister of Justice and one of Ghana’s most respected legislators, had accepted their severance package and refused to pay them.

According to them, the Government of Ghana had paid its money to Hon. Ghartey before the elections, but was deliberately refusing to pay them.

But that turned out to be a complete falsehood as Ghanaian laws do not even allow payments of that money to be made personally to any minister.

Realizing the regrettable damage to the reputation that they have caused the Minister through no fault of his own, the leadership of the railway workers fired on October 1, 2006 on Thursday, December 24, 2020, visited H.E. Ghartey at his private residence in Essikado to seek his forgiveness.

The laid off workers were led by their secretary, Edward Roberts, to embark on the apology mission after months of producing falsehoods against H.E. Ghartey, who has throughout his 30 years of political career, behaved very well in public and private life.

“As a result of the difficult situation, where we lived in a state of anguish and pain, we allowed ourselves to be misinformed that our expected money from the government had been received along with support for our existing rail workers. After a while, that we had no news from any sector about said money, we resorted to interviews with the radio station and, along the line, we made a certain nasty statement about you that was later found to be false, “they said .

“In light of this, we offer our sincerest apologies on behalf of all of us and deeply regret any inconvenience our actions have caused you as a person and as a Minister.”

Before their visit, they had written a letter of apology to the Hon. Ghartey on December 17, 2020.

In the letter signed jointly by its chairman, John Kodwo Appiah, and his secretary, Edward K. Roberts, the fired rail staff said “We offer our sincerest apologies on behalf of all of us (laid off staff) and deeply regret any actions that may have caused you as a person and as a minister.

Being a God fearing person, Hon. Ghartey accepted his apology and expressed his forgiveness for his mistakes against him.

However, he took the opportunity to emphasize that, while the apology was appropriate, the effect that “propaganda” had on his political fortunes was dire.

He shared that a large portion of the constituency, which is predominantly retired company staff, was swayed by misinformation.

“Of course it affected the course of the elections. Some people saw it as an “enemy action”, a deliberate action that was promoted by the NDC. Even if it wasn’t because of them, and it was a coincidence, it was a happy coincidence for them because they were able to go to people and persuade them that their money was with me and I don’t want to pay. And the railroad is a big constituency in my constituency. I say to you. Look at Kojokrom, Ketan, BU … railroad workers and retirees and their families are in all of these communities. You could clearly see that my votes in those communities were affected by this. “

Background

In 2006, the Government of Ghana implemented a downsizing program that allowed some railway workers to downsize.

As part of the expense reduction package, they were supposed to be paid a certain amount of money.

During the government of former President John Agyekum Kufuor, laid off workers received half of the money owed to them.

And during the Mills / Mahama administration, they were paid the remainder of the amount of money owed to them.

But the laid off workers went to court, arguing that their 2006 calculation was wrong and that they were owed additional money.

The Superior Court at the time agreed with the fired workers.

Because of that, the Ghana Railway Company went to the Court of Appeal and the matter was dismissed by the Court of Appeal because the Ghana Railway Company was not present in the Court.

After the case was dismissed by the Court of Appeals, the Ghana Railway Company again applied for his enlistment, so the matter is still in court.

As such, the government has not made any payments to the Hon. Ghartey.

Unfortunately, about three months ago, there were malicious publications in the media claiming that the government had paid the money for the laid off workers and that H.E. Ghartey.

The publications continued to suggest that the Minister had refused to pay the laid-off workers their severance package despite the government handing it over to him, which is completely false.

Ghanaian laws do not allow a Minister of State to directly or personally receive payments from government workers and pay them to workers on his own.

But the malicious posts to some extent could have influenced the results of parliamentary elections in some areas of the Essikado-Ketan constituency in the western region, which is a major railway hub.

Many of the residents in some areas, such as Kojokrom in the Essikado-Ketan constituency, have their parents and grandparents as railway workers or former railway workers, and therefore railway problems are not taken for granted in the area.