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| GBC burns as workers demand accountability |
10/7/2005 |
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Workers of the national broadcaster, Ghana Broadcasting Corporation-GBC have served warning to their top management that they hold them accountable for a series of fraudulent practices that have gone unchecked.
The worker on Thursday morning met to reinforce their stand over what they consider to be an official collusion to steal from the corporation’s accounts.
They referred to two incidents involving the withdrawal of huge sums of money totaling over ¢52 million from the corporation’s accounts.
The workers are pointing accusing fingers at the director general, Eva Lokko and her director of Finance.
Union chairman, Lewis Darko told Joy News that ongoing investigations indicate that one Emmanuel Parker, who is not a staff of the corporation and has been declared wanted by the Police CID, came to GBC in August to take an amount of ¢57,750,000 from the corporation’s accounts.
According to him, Mr Parker had earlier on in March this year come for an amount of ¢17.8 million.
“ Our concern is that of this guy has been declared wanted, why should he come to GBC to take a bigger cheque. We don’t know him, looking at the picture, we don’t know him,” he said.
Asked how come a non-staff of GBC could have access to the corporation’s cheques, Mr Darko said, “ That is what we are asking and we demand that the two main signatories to GBC’s accounts might be in the know, because after the Emmanuel Parker issue, measures were taken to safeguard these cheques.”
The union chairman explained that the corporation introduced a listing system so that no cheque can be cashed if that cheque had not gone through the listing system.
He further explained to Joy News that with the listing system it is only the bank that know of the signatures of the director general and that of the director of finance.
“ So if fraudulent cheques were included in genuine cheques including the name of Emmanuel Parker and he was able to cash this amount or more than ¢37 million then it means that the two signatories are aware and they know the whereabouts of that Emmanuel Parker,” he said.
Mr Darko said they suspect that the director of finance will have something to do with the missing money.
“ So we are calling for the arrest and interdiction of the two signatories as well as a probe into the matter,” he said.
Asked if the two signatories know of their complaints, Mr Darko replied, “ Oh they know, they are aware.”
He told Joy News that the union petitioned the GBC board and reported the matter to the National Media Commission-NMC but has not had any response from both bodies.
“ The management have vowed not to work with the union and that we are not part of managing GBC. We are just waiting for our demands to me met. If our demands are not met, the ‘aluta’ will continue. We are not going to go on demonstration, but the meetings will continue and more pressure will be put on them,” he said.
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