President gives Volta Star striking workers ultimatum

President Mahama in Todome

President John Dramani Mahama says workers of Volta Star Textiles must choose between governments paying their 11- month salary arrears or recapitalization of the textile factory for work to resume.

According to him, government cannot do both.

The operations of the Volta Star Textile factory has been hampered for close to over a decade now, owing to poor management, which led to the  company folding up in 2005, and its asserts liquidated.

A 3 million Ghana Cedi- recapitalisation by government in 2008, however saw the factory begin operations again employing over 1300 workers.



Eight years on, the company again faces imminent collapse as management grapples with poor working conditions and inability to generate enough profit for its operations.

Workers have not been paid for over 10 months, leading to them laying down their tool, grinding the factory to a halt.

Addressing the chiefs and people of Todome-kpalime during an inspection tour on the eastern corridor roads, President Mahama disclosed that a GHc6.1m seed capital has again been injected and workers are demanding the money be used for payment of their outstanding salaries.

 “I personally authorized the Export Development and Agriculture Investment Fund (EDAIF) to give the factory GH 6.1Million to recapitalize it to be able to start working again. Now the discussion is that, some of the workers say the money should be used to pay their full arrears.

But if you use the money to pay their full arrears, there would be no money to restart the factory. and so the board and management say let’s give you between two or three months of your arrears and let’s put the  rest of the money into production so that we ourselves can start paying you your current monthly pay while we clear the arrears”, he said.


Source.ghanaweb.com