Keta Port staff are GPHA employees offering support

The Management of the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA) has explained that staff of the yet-to-be-developed Keta Port are employees of GPHA assigned to offer support.

It explained that that the Keta Port project is a GPHA project and does not exist in isolation.

General Manager, Marketing and Corporate Affairs of GPHA, Mrs. Esther Gyebi-Donkor, in a statement said the payment of performance bonuses to its staff including those working on the Keta Port project is captured in the staff Collective Agreement (CA).

The GPHA, in an internal memo that has gone viral, announced the approval of 3.5 months of basic salary, tax inclusive as a staff bonus for the year 2022.

She explained that the quantum of the bonus was negotiated and agreed between Labour and Management at the end of every year before payment was made.

The statement is in reaction to discussions in the public on the leaked internal memo on the staff bonus approval, stressing that the payment on a pro rata basis for retired staff in the year was equally a function of the existing CA.

Mrs. Esther Gyebi-Donkor noted that employees seconded to Keta Port Project referenced in the memo are from the three main units – Headquarters, Port of Tema, and Port of Takoradi.

However, she explained that the practice of information dissemination is to copy all directors, hence the Director of the Keta Port Project.

She emphasized that there were three dedicated staff for the Keta Port Project and all of them were under headquarters, while a couple of other projects component-specific supporting staff work with the Keta Port Project Director from other departments of Tema, Takoradi, and the Headquarters.

“It is therefore erroneous for the impression to be created as though a number of staff have been employed under the Keta Port project, and some have even already retired and have been earmarked to receive the bonus payment,” it stated.

The GPHA Management reminded the public that the Executive Instrument (El) establishing the Keta Port Project was issued in October 2018, which paved the way for GPHA to commence the process, adding that so far, feasibility studies had been conducted and completed.

It added that national and international stakeholder engagements had also been held to present the feasibility study findings, while notice for Expression of Interest (EOI) by potential investors had also been published.

Management stated that the evaluation of tenders to engage a consultant to conduct the Environmental and Social Impact Assessment studies was ongoing.

The statement said the next step was to engage investors to a financial conclusion upon which construction could commence for the realization of a port in the Volta and Oti Regions that would serve Ghana and its neighbours.

“The Keta Port project is feasible, efforts by GPHA to build the port are ongoing, and the Director of the Keta Port Project is assiduously leading the team and coordinating the schedule of activities in this regard.

“It is a port for Ghana, and we humbly invite all well-meaning Ghanaians to support and be good ambassadors of this project,” she added.