On March 15, a group calling itself the 1993/1994 retrenched Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) Officers Association demonstrated in front of Parliament to petition the Speaker about what the group’s members claim is COCOBOD’s underpayment of their benefits.
The group laments that COCOBOD did not exercise due diligence when members were let go in 1993 and 1994.
However, once a lawsuit was filed to contest the dismissal, the court ordered COCOBOD to provide the former employees with the necessary benefits.
The group’s spokesperson, William Boafo, told reporters that the COCOBOD funding they received did not match their claims, which is why the Speaker of Parliament and the Office of the to look into the situation is the Special Prosecutor.
“We were at various departments, and various divisions working in various areas throughout the country and we were laid off in 1993 and some in 1994. It became a court issue and in 2019 the court gave a ruling that Cocobod should pay us our benefits but in 2020 COCOBOD started issuing cheques to us, and it was nothing to write home about.”Some of the former employees, according to Mr. Boafo, earned as little as GH 400, which was pitifully insufficient.
In order to correct the problem, he continued, several requests and meetings with COCOBOD authorities had been ineffective.
He disclosed that the COCOBOD layoffs had an impact on nearly 14, 000 workers.
