PSIs collapsing

The dismissal of over 100 dressmakers, who are mostly women from the President’s Special Initiatives (PSIs) Secretariat at the North Industrial area in Accra, has sparked anxiety among the rank and file of the workers.

Today Newspaper was reliably informed that the current management of the scheme saw it prudent to embark on a redundancy programme last year for the reason that there are no funds to effectively manage the scheme.

The paper understands that the dismissed dressmakers, who are discontented about the exercise, have vowed to hit the streets to increase their demand to be reinstated or duly compensated by their superiors.

The Head of Operations at the PSI, Mr. Osei Bonsu, had not responded to calls by the paper, neither had he replied to a text message the paper sent to him, which sought to enquire from him what has prevented his outfit from compensating or re-engaging the sacked workers.

The dressmakers accused management of the PSI secretariat of bias, especially in the steering of affairs of the ‘limping’ office.

They are also asking management to pay their three-month salary arrears.

Some of the enraged dressmakers who spoke on conditions of anonymity contended that since their dismissal last year, no effort has been made to pay their salary arrears let alone compensate them for their dismissals.

“Management asked us to come to the office and check on our salary arrears from time to time.
…Whenever we come, they have different kinds of stories to tell. We have spent time and money to chase our salaries, but these greedy and unconcerned chaps have done absolutely nothing about it,” some of the victims told Today.

“What we cannot comprehend is that they owe us some backlog of salaries so they should just pay us off. That is what we are asking for,” they submitted.

It would be recalled that the President’s Special Initiatives (PSIs), which were set up by the erstwhile NPP government were intended to spearhead the expansion of the Ghanaian economy through job creation and increase productivity.

The initiative was set up to allow people benefit and access opportunities (quota free and duty free/preferential duty access) available for Ghanaian manufactured garments and textiles into the European and American markets under the Lome/Cotonou Accord and the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) respectively.

There are basically five areas under the initiative which include accelerated export development for garment and textiles, salt mining, cotton production, oil palm production, cassava starch production and distance learning.