Most branches of the agricultural development bank (adb) have opened for business, despite an illegal sit-down strike embarked upon by some members of the Union of Industry, Commerce and Finance (UNICOF) workers.
The management of the bank assured its numerous cherished customers and the general public that all its departments were operating, open for business, and rendering all banking and customer services in all 78 branches across the country.
Reacting to the botched strike, the Executive Head of Retail Banking of adb, Alfred Akotiah, who was livid at the illegal strike embarked upon today, told African Eye News.com that the channel of communication used to inform the management of the strike was also unlawful.
He said: “Our notice was drawn to a WhatsApp message issued by the union to declare the strike. So, they (members of the union) did not follow the right communication channel.”
“The matter that the embattled UNICOF members were agitating was currently before the National Labour Commission (NLC) for redress. The management, therefore, does not see the need for the illegal strike.”
The Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, Haruna Iddrisu, who added his voice to the rift between the management of the bank and the workers, described the strike action as “completely misinformed” and “misplaced.”
He warned the workers that they could not declare a strike overnight, emphasising that it would have “dire consequences” for the corporate image of the bank, and “can erode confidence of the customers.”
Mr. Iddrisu said the government had been cooperating with the workers’ demands, including halting the sale of adb’s headquarters and suspending the bank’s planned enlistment on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE).
However, Ghanaian farmers and fishermen, Ghana Federation of Labour, Ghana Union of Traders’ Association had endorsed the decision of the bank to offload shares on the GSE, through an Initial Public Offering (IPO).
According to them, by listing on the GSE, the bank would raise more capital to support the growth and development of the country’s agric and aquaculture sectors.
They have, in a number of stakeholder consultations with the management of the bank recently, nudged the state-owned financial firm to go ahead with its intended IPO that is geared towards raising some GH¢300 million to fund growth and revamp the operations of the bank to make it competitive.
The consultation meetings, the second in a series, were aimed at soliciting the ideas, among others, of farmers, fishermen, and traders on the bank’s IPO, which was suspended by the government for further consultations.
The President of the National Farmers and Fishermen Award Winners Association (NFFAWAG), Philip Abayori, insisted that “going to the stock will make adb solid to finance agric” in the country.
“We, the farmers and fishermen of Ghana, therefore, solidly support the bank’s decision to go to the GSE to raise more funds for agriculture,” he stated emphatically at the meeting in Accra recently.
“We think this bank needs to be strengthened. We have come to [a] consensus that we have to support the bank to be able to achieve its aim,” Mr. Abayori said. “We hope that management would do their best to ensure that all the difficulties or bottlenecks, and all that [is] needed to be done, are done to make sure this IPO process goes through smoothly,” he added.
The Secretary of the Ghana Tomatoes Federation, Patrick Kwame Ahiabu, said the decision by the bank to list on the market was a laudable idea, and urged all to support the move. “This is a laudable idea. It is an opportunity some of us have been yearning for, for a very long time, so that we can also own a part of the bank. You need to speed up the process,” he told adb management.
The Managing Director of the adb, Stephen Kpordzih, who, with other top management staff said with the current ownership structure, as state-owned, the bank is unable to access medium and long-term funds that exist elsewhere, for example, from financial institutions like the IFC, CDC among others.
“They do have lines of credit for agriculture and small and medium scale enterprises. You can access between five to 15 year lines, but they will not deal with a hundred percent state-owned organisation. They like to deal with a private sector.”
Mr. Kpordzih said at one of the bank’s consolidation meetings that the bank, in going forward, will commit resources to agriculture, because about 60 percent of the Ghanaian populace is in the agriculture business, cautioning those in the sector “to see agriculture as a serious business, rather than the usual subsistence farming.”
“We need to find a way by getting people to understand that with proper funding made available, we can finance agriculture and make it profitable.”
The MD urged farmers, fishermen, and traders, among others, to buy into the intended IPO, so as to give them the necessary leverage in the workings of the bank. The farmers were pushing for a 20 percent stake in the bank, but Mr. Kpordzih said this was subject to approval by the shareholders.
Cabinet, last year, gave approval for the adb to list on the Ghana Stock Exchange through the IPO. The adb, which is 50 years this year, was set up in 1965 by Act 286. It is wholly publicly-owned. The Government of Ghana owns 52% of the shareholding, with the remaining 48% held by the Financial Investment Trust, on behalf of the Bank of Ghana.
The Central Bank has often been criticised for owning part of an entity it regulates — a situation that critics, among them the International Monetary Fund, say creates a conflict of interest situation, and fuels perceptions of favouritism.
African Eye News.com
