23rd October 2024

Month: August 2021

Takoradi PTC interchange workers demand increased wagesSome residents of Sekondi-Takoradi working on the PTC Interchange say they are not happy with the meagre daily wages being given them by the Synohydro contractors, and are therefore demanding an increment. The angry workers yesterday embarked on demonstration against the contractors, and resolved not to resume work until their demands were met. It took the intervention of Kwabena Okyere Darko-Mensah, the Western Regional Minister, to calm nerves after assuring them of a meeting with the contractors. Very low Some of the workers who spoke to Daily Statesman said they receive GHC19 .00 a day as wages. According to them, the minimum wage being paid their counterparts working on other projects is GHC50.00 a day, with the maximum being GHC400.00 This, they said, is in addition to free lunch. The workers said they spend part of the GHC19.00 on transport fares to and from work every day, pay rents, schools fees and also feed their families. Wondering whether they are magicians to foot all such bills with GHC19.00 daily wage, they said they would not allow themselves to be cheated. They said none of them had also been offered an appointment letter, with an excuse that it would be done later. In their view, this is a cunning way by the contractors to cheat them, but insisted that their trick would not work. Concerns Their uproar has raised eyebrows in the metropolis, with many concerned residents lambasting the Chinese contractors for trying to pull a fast one on the indigenes to maximize their profit. They intimated that even a private person undertaking project pays GHC60.00 and GHC40.00 respectively to the mason and his helper, and wondered why the Synohydro contractors should pay that ‘inhuman and insulting’ wage for construction works on the interchange which is supposed to be a national project. The concerned residents said this attitude has the tendency of slowing pace of work on the project, and urged political leaders to call the contractors to order.

Some residents of Sekondi-Takoradi working on the PTC Interchange...