It is intolerable to hear that soon hospitals, schools, factories and homes across the cities of Accra and Tema, might be without treated water, as a result of the cessation of production, occasioned by an unresolved dispute, between the Ghana Water Company's (GWCL) production unit's management and workers. Apparently, the workers have threatened to down tools, if management does not accede to their demands.
The question is: why should a dispute over the discontinuation of overtime payments and a reduction in workers' perks (the distribution of bags of rice and cooking oil), inconvenience millions of law-abiding residents of those two major cities? The provision of treated water has public health implications when it is disrupted for an extended period, does it not, I ask? Why pile on yet more misery - at a time when hapless Ghanaians are being asked to pay increased tariffs for treated water?
Enough is enough. Workers of state-owned utility companies providing what are essential services to the general public, must not be allowed to continue holding Ghanaians to ransom, with such impunity. It is time legislation banning strikes by public-sector employees, whose pay takes up as much as 70 percent of total national revenue, was enacted by Parliament.
The GWCL's production unit's management must resolve this particular dispute quickly and avert a halt in the production of treated water for distribution to the residents of Accra and Tema. If they fail to do so, they will be failing Mother Ghana - and for their information, there will be painful consequences for all of them.
The minister for works, housing and water resources would be wise to keep an eye on this potential human tragedy and PR disaster for the government of which he is such a prominent member, and make sure that it is resolved swiftly. A word to the wise...
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