Make Ghana Immune To Public Sector Strikes

No Ghanaian citizen resident in Ghana, ought to become  a victim   of striking and militant employees,    of entities that  come under  various organs of the Ghanaian nation-state.


It really is intolerable that innocent people should die needlessly,  for example, as a result of strike action by healthcare professionals,  employed to work in government hospitals and clinics around the country. Nothing can justify that. Ever. Not in a civilised nation such as ours.


The time has now  come for those who currently rule our nation   to take active steps,   to ensure that no  employee of any entity under an  organ of a nation-state, which  spends over 60 percent of total government revenue to pay its employees, is driven to hold ordinary Ghanaians  to ransom,  by embarking  on strike action   under any circumstances -  without automatically being dismissed from his or her  job.


There can be no justification for state employees  inconveniencing Ghanaian citizens by embarking on strike action.


After all, it is  precisely because of the dedicated service they are required to render the people of Ghana   and their nation,  during their working lives,  that the Ghanaian nation-state guarantees public-sector employees  a pension for the rest of their lives:  when they finally go on retirement.


President Mahama's administration ought to take a leaf from New York's Taylor Law,  and from legislation in the other  jurisdictions in the United States of America, which ban strikes by  all public employees,  to draw up a suitable bill to be presented to Parliament  and  passed into law,  which  will outlaw strikes by all categories of public-sector employees in Ghana.


It is long overdue - in a nation that has to be globally competitive and disciplined in order  to prosper. If as many as 39 states in the U.S.A. ban strikes by public employees,  why should Ghana not follow suit too?


President Mahama and his administration  must learn  valuable lessons   from the  extraordinary number of actual strikes -  and threats of strikes -  by public-sector employees,  since their regime came to power in January 2013.


Hopefully, having now seen the light, one hopes that the current administration  will now understand that selling its remaining stake in the partially state-owned downstream oil marketing company, Ghana Oil Company Limited (GOIL), is a very bad idea.


If GOIL remains in government hands,  and is encouraged  to sell  LPG gas in  outlets where that would be profitable, for example, one doubts very much that  the current widespread artificial LPG gas shortages would ever occur again, going forward.


Keeping GOIL in government hands,  will  also ensure that should it ever happen, any future politically motivated strike by privately-owned oil marketing companies,  refusing to sell fuel and other refined petroleum products to motorists, will not cause the national economy to grind to a halt.


And if privately-owned  bus companies and other private transport owners too decided to go on strike at some point in future - to put political pressure on a government of the day, which the  opposition party  they supported    wanted to make unpopular - would a state-owned  Intercity STC bus company, together with  the Metro Mass Transit Company,  not still keep the travelling public moving:   and enable travellers  to reach their final destinations around the country  safely?


Instead of the short-sighted decision to find a strategic investor to hand it over to, the present government would be wise to give the  Intercity STC bus company to the commercial wing of the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF).


The GAF will assemble   a  team of suitably qualified individuals -  civilian and military -  to  run it  as a disciplined, no-nonsense results-oriented  business entity.


It is just the sort of business that will thrive in the efficient and disciplined hands of the GAF - which is peerless when it comes to logistics. It proved it with Air Link - which at a point in time was the only domestic airline in Ghana.


Surely,  Intercity STC's  largest shareholder, which  wants to divest its holding in the company -  the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) -  would gladly accept long-term government paper with a decent coupon, which  it could  discount for cash today:  as payment for its stake?


To have the peace of mind to fulfil its manifesto promises to Ghanaians within its 4-year tenure, President Mahama's administration  must think strategically.


What is going on now, is only a dress rehearsal for the  2015-2016 campaign season,   when Ghana will definitely become "ungovernable" (to quote a genius)   -  if laws outlawing strikes by public-sector employees are not in place by then - as its main political opponent seeks to make the Mahama administration unpopular.


That is why President Mahama's administration  must take active steps now, to insulate itself from the effects of politically motivated strikes - by passing appropriate laws and taking suitable measures (including becoming the fairest and most enlightened  employer in the land), which   will make  the Ghanaian nation-state immune to strikes by public-sector employees. A word to the wise...


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