Kumasi, May 28, GNA – Dr Mathew Opoku–Prempeh, Minister for Energy, has admonished Management and Staff of the Volta River Authority (VRA), to use collaborative means to resolve all employer-employee related issues to promote healthy work environment.
The unions must also be willing to support initiatives that seek to increase productivity to sustain market share of the authority and the protection of jobs and incomes.
Dr Opoku-Prempeh was speaking at the 11th Quadrennial Delegates Conference of the VRA division of the Public Services Workers Union (PSWU) of Trades Union Congress (TUC) in Kumasi.
The Conference was on the theme, “Sustaining the New VRA, Protecting Jobs and Incomes in a Pandemic and beyond: The Role of the Unionised Staff.”
Dr Opoku-Prempeh said government envisaged a much more profitable and viable VRA as utility of excellence.
“We envisage VRA as a holding company, which will have a feature of the merger of our hydro assets with the thermal business running separately,” the Minister noted.
This, he said, was to ensure that VRA becomes a strong competitor to private sector independent power producers (IPPS) in the thermal space.
He said this would ensure operational efficiency and accelerated rate of growth in both internal and business processes.
The Energy Minister urged the management and staff of VRA to continue to live in harmony in the interest of sound principles of corporate governance, to ensure progress and advancement to sustain the country’s energy sector.
Mr Emmanuel Antwi–Darkwah, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of VRA, said the new VRA was proactive and diligently working to deliver public service with a private sector led excellence.
Mr John Sampa, Deputy General Secretary of PSWU of TUC, also indicated that the new VRA and its new branding would improve operational efficiency and development in a sustainable manner.
He admonished the union and staff to work hard to increase productivity and the financial resources of the organisation and also build and develop VRA’s human capital.
GNA