Speaking to JoyNews, Secretary General of the Ghana Federation of Labour, Abraham Koomson, said he is appalled by the posture taken by SSNIT on the issue.

“They have not stopped it. You know how things work in this country. For CHRAJ, how soon will they finish this? CHRAJ cannot injure the process, I don’t think they can do that. They don’t have that authority to injunct the process so they will still go ahead and do what they want to do.”

He added that the Federation will boycott a meeting at the request of the President next week as a sign of its displeasure.

“We are going to meet and discuss what? What we are saying is that stop the process. They should not continue, they should wait or stop it. That is all. We are going to meet him so he tells us what? I will not be part of it. I won’t go there. I won’t go.

“I don’t know what I am going there to discuss. It is as simple as telling the Employment Minister that ‘look, make sure this whole process is stopped’,” he stressed.

In May, Mr Ablakwa blew the whistle on the deal and raised concerns about why SSNIT would sell 60% of its stake in the hotels to a minister of state.

Some government officials and Ghanaians have since come to the defence of Mr Acheampong that he could transform the financial fortunes of the four hotels.

However, the MP for North Tongu continues to question the rationale behind the sale, emphasising that there is no evidence to suggest that Mr Acheampong could improve the performance of the state-owned hotels, some of which are already profitable.

Mr Ablakwa further criticised Mr Acheampong for failing to utilise his purported expertise for national benefit while serving as a cabinet minister.

He accused the Food and Agriculture Minister of reserving his skills for his private ventures rather than contributing to the public good.

“… If you have such great ideas to transform hotels, Bryan Acheampong sits in Cabinet. Why do we send people to Cabinet? Under the constitution, Cabinet is a place where you brainstorm and bring your expertise and know-how to bear. So why will you only bring your expertise to bear when it is your private property when you have bought it, when you have annexed it and it is within your private domain?

“Is that the only time you will bring that expertise to bear? Is that not unpatriotic? Is that not callousness?” he questioned.

He continued, “That is not being nationalistic. Why then are we paying you as a cabinet minister? It means we shouldn’t pay you, you shouldn’t be in Cabinet. This is the height of wickedness,” he noted.

GFL believes that the possible review will afford hale and hearty retirees the opportunity to contribute their quota to the workforce.

“We were in a program where somebody was going for retirement, and we realized that the person was strong and fit and could have stayed on for a while.

“So, we realized that why don’t we discuss and put this across for stakeholders and government and see whether some adjustment could be made so that we don’t waste these people who have institutional memories to help the growth and development of wherever they will be working,” Executive Secretary of the Federation, Dr. Abraham Koomson said in an interview with Accra-based Citi FM.

However, he stated a constitutional amendment was significant to facilitate GFL’s proposal.

“We have to engage the government and discuss the possibility. It is constitutional, so it means the constitution should be amended. It will not happen overnight, so we have to engage in discussions.

“Even if we go to the judicial sectors, I think they spend about seventy years or something. So if a judge could be working at the age of seventy, it means that at a certain age if you don’t have any health challenges, the person will be okay to work,” he added.

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According to him, this is as a result of inconsistencies in the statements and actions of President Nana Akufo-Addo and Finance Ministers about the economic system.

“The president himself said there will be no haircut in the DDE programme. But what happened? they’re cutting our heads and if care is not taken, our necks will be chopped off. The trust is not there because there is evidence to show that they say and act differently,” he said.

He indicated that “trust is key in business. If you don’t have trust in someone, you don’t take a friend whom you cannot trust. If you do that then you’re committing suicide,” he said on Accra-based Neat FM.

Mr Koomson has urged the media to help individual bondholders.

 He said the statement issued by organized labour is meant to alert the government not to go contrary to their agreement.

Organized labour has threatened to resist the government’s Debt Exchange Programme if pension funds are not exempted from the programme.

Meanwhile, the government has extended the deadline for the Domestic Debt Exchange Programme to February 7, 2023.

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The Finance Ministry in a press release on Tuesday added that a new settlement date of Tuesday, February 14, 2023, will be confirmed via the new Exchange Memorandum. 

Amidst lots of disagreements following lots of meetings, government said it “has made significant progress with all stakeholders, including financial sector industry associations and representative groups of individual bondholders, with respect to their participation in the Domestic Debt Exchange Programme.”