‘We’re sorry’ – Railroad workers apologize to Joe Ghartey for wrongly tarnishing his reputation

Friday December 25, 2020 Policy

Source: Melvin Tarlue, Contributor

2020-12-25

The leaders of the laid-off Ghanaian railway workers have offered a wholehearted apology to the Minister of Railway Development and Member of Parliament for Essikado-Ketan Constituency, the Hon. Joe Ghartey, for wrongly tarnishing his hard-earned reputation.

It will be recalled that on the eve of the general election of December 7, 2020, the dismissed workers addressed the media, in particular the radio, to maliciously claim that the Hon. Ghartey, a former Attorney General and Minister of Justice and one of Ghana’s most respected lawmakers, had taken their severance pay and refused to pay it.

According to them, the government of Ghana had before the elections paid its money to the Hon. Ghartey but he deliberately refused to pay them.

But this turned out to be a complete lie as Ghana’s laws do not even allow payments of these sums to be made personally to a minister.

Aware of the unfortunate damage to reputation they caused to the Minister through no fault of his own, the leaders of the railway workers laid off on October 1, 2006 paid a visit to the Hon. Ghartey at his private residence in Essikado to ask for his forgiveness.

The sacked workers were led by their secretary, Edward Roberts, to embark on the apology mission after months of lies against the Hon. Ghartey, who has had his 30-year political career, has behaved very well in public and private life.

“Due to the difficult situation, where we were living in a state of distress and pain, we allowed ourselves to be misinformed that the money we were expecting from the government had been received alongside the support of our existing railway workers. After a while we didn’t hear anything from somewhere about this money we resorted to radio station interviews and along the line we made some nasty statement about you that came up. later proved to be false, ”they said.

“In view of this, we extend our full apologies to you on behalf of all of us and deeply regret any inconvenience our actions may have caused you as a person and as a Minister.”

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

In the letter signed jointly by their Chairman, John Kodwo Appiah, and Secretary, Edward K. Roberts, the dismissed railway staff said: “We apologize unreservedly on behalf of all of us (dismissed staff) and deeply regret everything. inconvenience that our actions might have caused you as a person and as a minister.

Being a God fearing person, the Hon. Ghartey accepted their apologies and expressed his forgiveness for their wrongs against him.

However, he took the opportunity to point out that while the apology was appropriate, the effect of “propaganda” on his political fortunes was disastrous.

He shared that a larger portion of the constituency, who are mostly retired company employees, has been swayed by misinformation.

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

Context

In 2006, the government of Ghana launched a layoff program which allowed some railway workers to make layoffs

Under the downsizing program, they were supposed to receive a sum of money.

During the government of former President John Agyekum Kufuor, laid-off workers received half of the money they were owed.

And during the Mills / Mahama administration, they received the rest of that amount of money that was owed to them.

But the sacked workers went to court, arguing that the calculation they made in 2006 was wrong and that they were owed extra money.

The High Court at the time agreed with the dismissed workers.

For this reason, the Ghana Railways Company applied to the Court of Appeal and the case was removed from the Court of Appeal because the Ghana Railways Company was not present in the Court.

After the case was struck out by the Court of Appeal, the Ghana Railways Company again applied for his enlistment, so the case is still before the court.

As such, no payment has been made by the government to the Hon. Ghartey.

Unfortunately, about three months ago there were malicious media posts claiming that the government paid the money for the laid-off workers and was being kept by the Hon. Ghartey.

The publications went on to suggest that the minister had refused to pay the dismissed workers their severance pay after the government communicated to him what was completely false.

Ghanaian laws do not allow a Minister of State to directly or personally receive payments for government employees and to pay them to workers himself.

But the malicious publications could have influenced the results of parliamentary elections to some extent in parts of the Essikado-Ketan constituency in the Western Region, which is a major railway hub.

So many residents of certain areas like Kojokrom in Essikado-Ketan constituency have their parents and grandparents who are railway workers or former railway workers and therefore railway problems are not taken for granted in the area.