Ghana’s largest industrial workers’ union has called on President John Mahama to halt plans to sell a majority stake in the Volta Aluminium Company (VALCO), warning that privatizing the state-owned smelter would threaten jobs, weaken Ghana’s ambitions to build an integrated aluminium industry and hand control of a strategic national asset to private investors.
The Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union (ICU) delivered a petition to the president through Tema Metropolitan Chief Executive Ebi Bright following a demonstration in the port city on Monday, protesting what it described as plans by the Ghana Integrated Aluminium Development Corporation (GIADEC) to divest a 70% equity stake in VALCO to Arch Holdings Consortium.
The union said information available to it indicated GIADEC was determined to proceed with the transaction despite repeated objections from workers.
“Credible information available to the Union indicates that GIADEC is determined to proceed with the release of a 70% equity stake in VALCO to Arch Holdings Consortium, thereby handing over the management and operations of the Company to a private investor,” Morgan Ayawine, General Secretary of the Industrial and Commercial Workers’ Union, said while reading the protest statement.
The proposed transaction would transfer management control of the aluminum smelter to a private investor and reverse years of state investment that have restored the company’s operations, the union said.
The labor group argued that VALCO has made significant operational progress in recent years and questioned the rationale for selling a controlling interest at a time when the company is beginning to benefit from restructuring efforts.
“It is therefore unacceptable to relinquish control of the Company to a private investor at a time when the benefits of these collective efforts are beginning to materialise,” Ayawine said, noting that the Minister for Lands and Natural Resources had recently highlighted the company’s improving performance.
The union warned that privatization could result in job losses, weaker employee welfare and reduced financial returns for the state, while undermining Ghana’s plans to develop an integrated aluminum value chain.
It also accused GIADEC of pursuing the transaction despite collaboration between government, management and workers that had restored VALCO to operational stability.
The petition cited President Mahama’s May Day address in Koforidua, in which he pledged to revive state-owned enterprises and urged organized labor to speak out when public companies were being mismanaged.
“In the spirit of this commitment, and in recognition of His Excellency’s reputation as a listening President, we respectfully call upon him to intervene decisively to halt the proposed sale of VALCO,” the union said.
The ICU warned that if its concerns were not addressed “within the shortest possible time,” it would consult its governing structures to determine further action, which it said could assume “a national character” in defense of VALCO and Ghana’s strategic interests.
The protest adds pressure on the Mahama administration as it seeks to attract investment into Ghana’s aluminum industry while balancing calls from labor groups to retain state control over key industrial assets.
