VALCO Shut-Down | Social

The Volta Aluminum Company Limited (VALCO) has been shut down.
This adopted a request by the administration of the corporate to the Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo) yesterday[November 1, 2022] to chop off energy provide to the corporate within the wake of employee agitation for higher wages and different issues.

The protesting employees have, in the meantime, described the measure by the corporate as unlucky, saying that the closure could have a extreme affect on the cells of the aluminum plant which may make it tough to restart the plant.

A administration supply at GRIDCo instructed the Daily Graphic that an official request from VALCO necessitated the facility lower, including:

“We can only restore power at their demand when they are able to resolve whatever issues they have with their workers.”

The supply added that the disconnection was inflicting GRIDCo to lose income from an influence provide settlement between the 2 entities.

At a press convention yesterday, the employees union stated outages on the smelter for greater than two hours would freeze the cells and make restarting the plant problematic.

“Some outages can price as much as hundreds of thousands of {dollars}, and for a plant that runs on 127 lively cells which are alleged to be working 24 hours every day, you'll need greater than $100,000 to revive each single cell.

“We consider too that there are no emergency programs that could have minimized the damage the power cut may have occasioned,” the Union Chairman, Edgar Tetteh, stated.

Requests

The employees union have been calling for the restoration of their wages listed to the US greenback since Monday.

They are additionally demanding the removing of the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the corporate, Dan Acheampong, and the Human Resource Director, Festus Quaidoo, from their positions over allegations that they reached their statutory retiring ages greater than a 12 months in the past.

Mr Tetteh additionally alleged that employees' dwelling situations had worsened, though administration continued to profit from big allowances that have been listed to the US greenback.

"There's nowhere on the planet that smelter employees are paid under $500, however our state of affairs will not be so. Meanwhile, these managers obtain automobile upkeep and gas allowances that would cater for the salaries of many employees.

“It is in this light that when we went to the negotiation table in 2021, we agreed with management to find a better way of compensation, using the US dollar index, as has always been the case, so that going forward our wages will be protected,” he added.

On the alleged manhandling of journalists, together with a TV3 reporter, on the premises of the corporate by armed military males throughout the employees' protest final Monday, Mr Tetteh described it as unlucky and referred to as for investigations into the matter.

Management

The administration of the corporate was not accessible to reply to the allegations and considerations raised by the union.

Attempts to achieve administration have been unsuccessful.

At the time of submitting this report, it was realized that the VALCO administration was in a crunch assembly with the management of the union.