The General Secretary for the General Agricultural Workers Union, GAWU of the Trades Union, Edward Kareweh has called on the government to ban the exportation of cup lumps in Ghana as over 70, 000 workers are at stake of losing their livelihood.
According to him, Ghana does not have enough cup lumps to feed the rubber factories yet people who do not give hands to a rubber plantation in the country, export them, leaving factories stranded.
Mr Kareweh made these remarks during a tour at Ghana Rubber Estate Limited, GREL at Abura, in the Western Region to ascertain the destruction of over 40 acres of rubber plantation by unknown persons, and added that the rubber factory has been closed down for more than two weeks as a result of the lack of cup lumps.
He said, if the government fails to ban the exportation of the raw material, then more than 70,000 people will be jobless because the company will be left with inadequate raw materials for production and as a result, lay off their workers.
“We don’t even have enough so why do we export, we must produce to feed ourselves and industry and the excesses will be exported. We must ban it because jobs are at stake, over 70,000 jobs are at stake and these people will not get jobs anywhere if this company goes down.”
“The plantation of GREL is heavily encroached, criminals come and cut down our trees, and not only that, galamsey is heavily encroaching our plantation.”
“Now we are destroying our trees and it’s very expensive to grow and nurture rubber trees, we hope our president hears us and do something about it,” He said.
The Acting Factory Manager for Ghana Rubber Estate Limited, Boafo Taylor also added that the factory has not been working for some time now and it has brought hardship to the workers and the company as a whole, he therefore joined the call on the government to ban the exportation of the raw material.
