Staff of the Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC) in Accra have been locked out of their office as they demand the immediate removal of their Chief Executive, Samuel Sarpong, who has been accused of operational mismanagement.
The staff are also resisting what they believe to be a decision by the directors of PURC to reinstate Nana Yaa Jantuah who resigned her post as the Public Relations Director of the regulatory body.
TV3’s Catherine Frimpongmaa reported from the PURC headquarters that the workers claim the directors of PURC on Wednesday invited Nana Yaa Jantuah into a closed door meeting after which it emerged the directors were considering reinstating her.
“They [the workers] say they do not want Nana Yaa Jantuah back and they also want their Chief Executive Samuel Sarpong sacked over claims of intimidation, victimization of staff, administrative mismanagement and hostile leadership among others,” Catherine reported.
The workers claimed that PURC was indirectly ran by former President John Mahama because most of the decisions of the Commission came from the presidency at the time.
Meanwhile, they want President Nana Akufo-Addo to as a matter of urgency, constitute a new board for PURC.
Chairperson of the PURC Staff Union, Abubakari Jabaru told TV3 that they had convinced the workers to remove posters that were on their office doors but Wednesday’s meeting of the directors with Nana Yaa Jantuah has not gone on well with them.
“They have given us a lot of headache and I think that as executives we discussed among ourselves that we should have to protest and surprisingly we’ve come and all of us are outside,” he said.
His vice chair, Israel Amenfi, said though they are willing to work, they are not happy with the board, which he said has had its mandate expired, yet the board has been taking decisions which have been detrimental to staff.
Asked why they would have issues with Nana Yaa Jantuah being reinstated, he said “the reputational damange that has been caused by the face of and the personality of Nana Yaa Jantuah just because of the way she hegemoniously arrogated power onto herself”.
He said he has worked at PURC for 12 years without a promotion whatsoever, saying “I have been here for 12 good years; I have not seen a single promotion. I am a technical person,” noting a lot more staff at their offices nationwide are suffering from the same issues.
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