GCMCL Saga: Sack Frances – COPEC

The Chamber of Petroleum Consumers-Ghana (COPEC-GH) has said the CEO of the Ghana Cylinder Manufacturing Company Limited, Frances Essiam, must be sacked.

President Nana Akufo-Addo dissolved the board of GCMCL recently following investigations into fights between the CEO and the Board.

It will be recalled that some workers of the company staged a protest a few months ago in an attempt to prevent the board from removing Ms Essiam.

Clad in red armed bands, the war song-chanting workers picketed the premises of the state-owned company to register their displeasure against the board for voting to suspend Ms Essiam, Accra News’ Fred Alvis Agbenyo reported at the time from the premises.

Some of them told Agbenyo that: “We heard in the news that the Board Chair has suspended our CEO. We want to know what is actually going on. The CEO was appointed by the president and not the Board. All of us are working towards the same goal.”

A day earlier, six of the nine-member board voted in favour of Ms Essiam’s suspension at a meeting held outside the premises of GCMCL due to a lock-out on the orders of the embattled CEO, a situation that barred staff of the company from gaining access to their offices when they turned up for work that day.

Among other things, the Board wrote to Ms Essiam asking her to explain why she unilaterally contracted a loan to pay workers’ February salary without the board’s knowledge and approval.

The board also demanded answers from the CEO about why she ordered the sale of a disused machine belonging to the company.

She was restrained by the board from touching a GHS5m stimulus package secured for the company by the government.

In a statement titled: ‘Sack GCMCL MD, too, Immediately or Publish Report’, however, COPEC-GH said it found it befuddling that Ms Essiam is still at post while the Board has been done away with.

“Though our private checks indicate the report did not in any way vindicate the CEO of the allegations, the public, who followed these developments so far are only being given a communiqué to the effect of a desolation of the Board.

“One is tempted to ask: Is this latest action to indicate the CEO has been cleared of all charges, or rather another vile attempt to cover-up whatever the alleged rot, stealing and breaches raised by the Board, are?”

Source: ClassFMonline