MPS Case Review with Mahama – Workers Tell President | Social

The country's workers have asked the government to revise the contract signed between the previous Mahama administration and the Meridian Port Services (MPS), which allows the company to manage the port of Tema for 35 years.

Angry workers resisted the morning rain and expressed dissatisfaction with the agreement reached on the Independence Square in Accra during the May Day celebration.

The workers, most of whom wore red outfits, head and arm bands, carried placards bearing, inter alia, "Nana Save GPHA Now", "No GPHA, No MPS" and "Can this dubious contract be be concluded in Jordan ", among others.

Anthony Yaw Baah, General Secretary of the Congress of Trade Unions (TUC), said the contract had been awarded to MPS in 2015 without a call for competition. He added that MPS would monopolize the activities of the port of Tema when it entered service on the new terminal in June of this year.

"An badysis conducted by the Ghana Ports and Harbors Authority (GPHA) shows that when the new terminal comes into service in June 2019 with the monopoly rights granted to MPS, GPHA and the other Tema port operators will lose huge revenues. that could collapse many companies related to containers, "he said.

Apart from this, the TUC boss said: "This will result in mbadive job losses in the maritime sector. The GPHA could declare more than 14,000 workers laid off in 2019 alone. "If the contract is not reviewed and MPS does not start operations at the new terminal in June 2019, Ghana will surely lose millions of dollars in revenue in addition to the $ 800 million MPS. tax benefits under this agreement. "

The Congress of Trade Unions (TUC) therefore wants the agreement between the government and the MPS for the expansion of the port of Tema to be reconsidered. Dr. Yaw Baah also expressed concerns about how the Social Security and Social Security Fund (SSNIT) currently manages the country's pension plans.

He mentioned the government's debt to the trust under the second-tier occupational plan.

He said: "Although the government has transferred more than 3 billion GH ¢ to the second-tier program of the public sector in 2018, this is a small step in the right direction; The government still owes the SSNIT and second tier regimes millions or even billions of Ghana Cedis … "

Baah said the pension schemes would not work effectively if the government failed to pay social security contributions for its more than 600,000 workers.