The remaining staff of the Ghana Community Network Services Limited (GCNet) working on the GeGov Project have been served notice of Redundancy letters to be laid off by end of April 2021 following the non-renewal of GCNet’s Service Agreement with the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA).
The January 29, 2021 letter explained that management had to embark on a demobilization exercise in the operations of the GeGov Service, Infrastructure and Support Departments due to non-renewal of the service agreement.
‘Per above, your employment contract shall be determined through redundancy. GCNet is hereby serving three months effective February 1, 2021. The effective date of your termination is April 30, 2021’, the letter in part read.
Affected staff, numbering over fifty (50) are in deep shock and anxious over the silence of the letter on the stipulated redundancy package as enshrined in the Company’s Human Resource Manual Policy, with some contemplating seeking legal redress should the suffering of redundant colleagues earlier served to be visited on them.
Earlier on June 1 2020, a notice of redundancy letter to about One Hundred and Forty-Seven (147) staff of GCNet was issued, an exercise which was effected due to the Government’s termination of GCNet’s TradeNet and Transit Service contract on May 31, 2020 which notice was served in early April 2020.
The fears of the soon to be made redundant staff on the GeGov Project, according to them, stem from the blatant refusal of management to pay off their colleagues on the TradeNet and Transit side of the Company’s operations till date in spite of an Arbitration Award in favour of those affected and a High Court ruling upholding the decision of the Arbitration Panel using the National Labour Commission rules.
Staff are in utter disgust at the attitude of GCNet, a company which publicly trumpeted its hallmark as a corporate citizen of integrity and law-abiding entity, but acts completely in bad faith in blatant disregard for its internal HR policy and Labour Act of the land.
It will be recalled that Executive Management of GCNet with the full sanction of its parent company, SGS, refused to respect an Arbitration Award in favour of about 147 affected staff whose employment were terminated on June 30, 2020.
SGS/GCNet upon being summoned by the NLC and ordered to respect the Award of the Arbitration Panel which is final, binding and enforceable with immediate effect, defied the Commission and headed to the law court to challenge the Arbitration Award following the dismissal of a review petition.
That action by SGS/GCNet through an application to the Courts to set aside the Arbitration Award and declare the HR Policy Manual null, void and of no effect, seen by labour analysts as a clear waste of time and also to frustrate redundant staff has since been DISMISSED.
