Some Rehabilitation Farm Hands workers popularly known as Weeding Gangs operating in the Western North Region have threatened to withdraw services if Cocobod fails to pay their salaries.
According to the angry labourers since November 2021, when Cocobod gave them appointment letters, no salary has been paid.
Speaking in a telephone interview with the Republic Press, the Chairman of the Association, Mr Joseph Afrifa said recruitment was made in batches and for the past one year none of the workers has been paid.
Mr Afrifa said the situation renders the workers ineffective as some are sick while others are injured.
He said, “we were told to go and check our salaries at the bank and report to the District Cocoa Extension Officer who will further forward to the region but after going through all these exercises, nothing has been done.”
“We have served notice to Cocobod that by Thursday, August 11, 2022, if our salaries do not hit our accounts, we will embark on demonstration,” he stated
The Secretary to the Rehabilitation Farm Hands Association, Mr Maxwell Gakpetor said Cocobod has failed in all its promises of providing Wallentin boots, cutlasses, sharping stones and bush attires to the workers after the appointment.
“We bought our tools for working on the farms.” He noted
Mr Gakpetor said “If they don’t pay us our money, we will not weed the farms and the cocoa will die. A lot of cocoa farmers in Sefwi have lost interest in Cocobod because they have cut down all their farms in the name of Rehabilitation Farm Hands.”
He complained that the GHs 650.00 monthly pay due them end up being GHs 580.00 because of the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) deduction where many of the workers say they don’t have SSNIT cards or numbers.
