Workers of the Coca-Cola Bottling Company Ghana, continue to demonstrate on the premises of the company in Accra, as they keep piling pressure for the reinstatement of Seth Adu-Baah, the company’s dismissed Managing Director.
The workers have accused the company of maltreating Ghanaian managers, claiming Mr. Adu-Baah has been very instrumental in the company’s growth, and does not deserve a dismissal.
This is the third time the workers are demonstrating since they started the mass action on Friday, January 24, 2020.
The Assistant Secretary of the Local chapter of the company’s Industrial and Commercial Workers Union, George Gyimah Sarpong,told Citi Business News the workers will resist the appointment of a new Managing Director.
According to the workers, Felix Gomez, the Senegalese MD for West African countries instigated Mr. Adu-Baah’s removal. They have vowed to resist any new MD who may be appointed.
“We want to send a clear and a strong signal to the President, to the Minister of Trade and Industry, that there’s this man called Felix Gomez, whose agenda is to lay off all Ghanaian managing directors in executive positions in Coca Cola. He has done that in Liberia, he has succeeded in that in Sierra Leone and in The Gambia, but we are saying no way in Ghana.
We will indeed be citizens and not spectators. He also wants to lay off 150 staff, and this current MD protested strongly that he was not going to allow, and he refused to sign, and because of that he has been asked to resign, and we are saying no Seth no work, and indeed we are going to stand by this resolution”.
About Seth Adu-Baah
Seth Adu-Baah, who has worked with the company for 18 years, has served as MD of Coca Cola in Sierra Leone, The Gambia and Ghana, before he was allegedly forced out of the company by the Regional Head of the company this week.
The roles he has served in, have given him wide-ranging experience in all aspects of financial management and control, and crucially, supply chain management, and involved liaising with banks, external auditors, tax authorities and consultants.
The workers union has petitioned the Industrial and Commercial Workers Union, ICU, to intervene in the standoff.
The workers have also vowed to cut down production at the Spintex Road factory of Coca Cola to press home their demands.
According to them, the MD has forged a strong synergy between management, staff and the local union, which ought to be maintained.
In the petition to ICU which was sighted by Citi News, the Local Union executives of the company are calling for an investigation into his removal.
The company has declined comment on the matter.