The fate of casual workers of the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) at Weija Treatment Plant to enjoy Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) benefit after long years of hard work has been dashed-out due to management failure to enroll them on to the scheme.
According to the angry workers working in a government institution, all attempts including personnel interaction with management to force them to pay their monthly SSNIT contributions has yielded no result.
Currently, two out of the five casual workers have less than three years to go on retirement and are uncertain on what they are going to survive on after the many years of service to the company.
The workers numbering five have been tasked to weed portion of over 30-acre land where the company operates and works Monday to Saturday with a daily fee of GH¢20.00.
“What is more demeaning is the fact that the salary is not regular, there is no allowance, no health insurance cover for them and their families and no overtime pay to serve as a motivation,” the casual workers exclusively told the Republic Press.
According to the Leader of the casual workers, Mr. Kwame Mensah popularly known as Fela said the portion of their work expand from intake, treatment through to quarters which requires more workers but because of the bad working conditions, many of them have abandoned the job.
Mr. Mensah said “I joined the company in 2010 and at that time, we were given a daily fee of GH10.00 and so between 2012 to 2014 it was slightly adjusted to GH15.00 and finally increased to GH¢20.00 in 2017 and ever since it has remained there so we end up not being paid the GH¢520.00 as monthly pay because any day you forfeit it is deducted.”
“We are paid per work so if you fall sick and couldn’t go to work, those days would be deducted from the salary at the end of the month. Again if you sustain any injury as a result of the work, no insurance cover to treat you but rather management would decide whether to support or not,” he stated.
He stated that payment of their salaries are on ‘table top’ while regular workers are paid by the government through the bank hence the non payment of the SSNIT contributions.
“Now that we are almost due for pension, what happens to us, after doing all these hard work in all these years. Are we going to suffer till death.?, he quizzed.
Another casual worker, Mr. Adam Muntari revealed that it appears management are adamant to their appeal.
“If they fail to act, we are ready to quit the work.
“We are by these means praying to management to consider our plight by increasing our daily fee to at least GH30.00 and again enroll us on to the SSNIT Pension Scheme, ” Mr. Adam added.
