Mineworkers’ Gen Sec slams Akufo-Addo for fuelling loss of $24bn through corruption

By Patrick Biddah

The General Secretary of the Mineworkers Union of the Trades Union Congress, Abdul-Moomin Gbana, has lashed out at President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo for supervising an increasing occurrence of corruption in his administration.

This, he pointed out has resulted in the loss of $24billion in the last seven and half years, since the assumption into office as President.

According to an Imani Ghana report, Ghana loses US$3bn annually to corruption and related practices in Ghana .

This figure, according to Mr Gbana, has reached US$24billion in the last eight years since Akufo-Addo has been President in view of the fact that little effort has been made to reduce the canker.

Speaking with Journalists on the sideline of the national executive council second half meeting in Accra on November 26, 2024, Mr Gbana, indicated that corruption is a critical area that continue to make nonsense of all efforts by trade unions and as a country’s effort at making economic growth.

He, therefore said there is the urgent need to confront this deadly cancer ravaging the country and continent head-on.

Outlining ways by which the fight can be won, he called on all trade unions to rise up by naming and shaming perpetrators of corruption, adding that the fight must be sustain with hitting the streets to register their displeasure.

“The more and more corruption strives means that our future and the future of our children and grandchildren is being stolen away “, he noted.

In his view, it is okay for the TUC to negotiate salaries, but the same salaries cannot be paid if the nation is leaking heavily due to corruption.

“Comrade Chair, the traditional bread and butter issues are important, no doubt, but the time has come for trades unions to break the loud silence and speak up more vigorously in dissent on key national policy issues in general but more particularly on corruption and corruption related offences”, he intimated.

“Brothers and sisters, let me remind us all that the resources of this country belongs to all of us – old or young, abled, or disabled, male or female, akan or ewe, tall or short, etc., and not for NDC or NPP, or any other political party”, he pointed out

Mr Gbana, who minced no words indicated that corruption is being perpetrated by a few greedy people who must not be allowed to continue undertaking their activities.

“The Ghana Mineworkers’ Union stands in complete opposition to anything anti-Ghana and will from 2025 embark on spirited campaigns aimed at clumping down on corruption/illicit financial flows and many of the things that draw us back as a nation”, he warned.

The General Secretary, who touched on a wide-range of issues called on the President to also pass the revised labour act.

He made the case that there have been a surge in workers and trade union rights violations and shrinking collective bargaining coverage, job insecurity as well as threatening social protection cover which is accompanied by fluctuations in income and pensions.

These developments in the labour space, he explained informed their efforts to review the labour laws.

“It is against this backdrop that the Ghana Mineworkers’ Union staged a spirited campaign over the past five years, calling Government’s attention to the urgent need to review the current Labour Act 2003 (Act 651) to deal comprehensively with the implementational gaps and challenges to make it responsive to the changing needs of the actors in the industrial relations space”, he further explained.

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