Chinese Construction Company Refutes Allegations
The management of China Jiangxi Corporation for International Economic & Technical Cooperation (CJIC) has rebutted recent allegations in the media that it is maltreating indigenous staff of the company and recklessly sacking many of them.
At a press conference on Friday in Accra, Vincent Pu, Interpreter of the construction firm, which is undertaking the construction of the Akatsi-Tadzewu-Dzodze-Akanu road and Zhu Hongfeng, a Director, denied allegations that the company dismissed its workers, underpaid them, failed to provide safety gadgets and also refused to pay compensation to workers who lost their lives or suffered permanent disabilities.
“They are mere fabrications meant to drag the good name of our company into the mud. Even the picture used in the story has nothing to do with us. And you may get to understand from our consultant that we have not even started doing our U-drains what we call gutter-laying works,” Mr Pu stated.
He noted that the number of Ghanaian employees at their project site was 189, and not 221 as reported in the media, adding that it include some 40 workers who were engaged in May. “No one has been wrongfully dismissed, let alone the so called “frequent dismissals. According to our payrolls, you can find that our employee number is steadily increasing month by month.
Although some employees have left, management helped to facilitate this on the basis of negotiations and mutual respect. Also, a few of our staff were let go because of stealing and negligence which has already caused huge financially and technically losses,” the interpreter mentioned.
On the take-home salaries and wages of staff, he said all workers, before recruitment, are duly informed about their salaries, as well as the modes and time of payment. Workers, he noted, have time cards which state the daily hours they have earned.
“If there are any missing or wrongfully calculated hours, every body is allowed to cross-check these whenever they want and amend accordingly. As for medical bills, we fully pay every employee whenever bills are brought to us,” he added.
Mr Hongfeng also said the company had fully compensated the family of a worker who passed away in a quarry accident, stressing that a worker lost his leg as a result of an accident.“We reported the incident and brought the tipper driver immediately it happened to the Dzodze Police Station.
Afterwards, we paid all the medical bills and hired a fully-equipped ambulance with escort to take the victim to the Northern Region where his family had requested that he should be sent,” he said.
He added that management of the company had never frustrated nor stopped any employee from joining any workers’ union. He revealed that some eight workers, who decided to form a union, ended up causing havoc among themselves.
“They beat up their local colleagues and locked the main gate to the site, holding the entire company and its staff to ransom for more than one and a half hours. “We are law-abiding professionals that are rated among the top 225 international contractors globally. We will never do anything to maltreat any Ghanaian employee,” he added.
Source: Daily Guide
