Citi Business News has learnt Tullow Ghana Limited, has defied the directive by the Petroleum Ministry not to lay off core technical staff.
[contextly_sidebar id=”rovL5tFkSTYD1jiJFTcnRktmHAyOVRF3″]According to the General Transport, Petroleum and Chemical Workers Union (GTPCWU) Tullow has laid-off more than 30 workers including core technical staff.
GTPCWU, which is the umbrella union of workers in the oil and gas sector, told Citi Business News, the highly skilled Ghanaian technical workers were operating on the FPSO Kwame Nkrumah.
Tullow earlier announced the move to lay off workers because of the drop in crude price on the international market and the negative effects on their book.
The Deputy General Secretary of the Union Francis Sallah told Citi Business News,” we are reliably informed that in spite of the ministers directive to Tullow not to lay off core technical staff , they have indeed gone ahead to lay off some core technical staff. We are not happy with it because the local content clearly is trying to protect these kind of people”.
Meanwhile the workers union says it will defend the course of the workers despite the fact that they are not part of the Union.
“We are talking to some of them and in actual fact they regret not joining the union”, he said.
“We are calling on the Minister Of Employment and Labor Relations, Energy and Petroleum Commission to call (all parties involved) to sit down and look at what is best for this country”, Sallah charged.
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By: Rabiu Alhassan/citifmonline.com/Ghana