VALCO Management Staff Distances Itself from Protest

The Professional and Management Staff Union of the Volta Aluminium Company Limited has distanced itself from an ongoing demonstration against the search for a strategic investor for VALCO, insisting that the smelter requires about $700 million to be rebuilt and not the $60 million being suggested by those organising the protest.

In a statement issued Monday, PMSU-VALCO, which represents Assistant Managers, Managers and Area Managers, said it had no knowledge of, involvement in, or association with the demonstration.

The Union said it was not consulted, informed, or engaged in any form prior to the planning or announcement of the action, and that no management forum, meeting, or communication preceded it.

It stressed that whatever position is being advanced through the demonstration is not the position of the professional and management staff of VALCO and must not be represented to the public, to Government, or to prospective investors as such.

Central to the disagreement, the Union said, is the claim that some $60 million would be sufficient to restore VALCO to efficient operation.

As the engineers, maintenance professionals and operations personnel who work on the plant every day, PMSU said it rejects that figure because it does not reflect the condition of the equipment.

The Union explained that much of the plant is obsolete rather than merely worn, beyond the point where refurbishment is meaningful, and in many cases beyond the point where spares and technical support remain commercially available.

It argued that restoring VALCO to efficient, competitive operation is not a repair exercise but a rebuild.

The Union stated unequivocally that VALCO needs a strategic investor.

Based on direct working knowledge of the asset base, PMSU said its assessment is that the requirement is of the order of $700 million or more.

It described this as not a marginal difference of opinion but a difference of more than a factor of ten, and one that goes to the heart of what is being asked of Government and of the Ghanaian taxpayer.

The Union warned that a $60 million intervention would not make VALCO efficient. It would consume public funds, deliver a short reprieve, and return the Company to the same position, with the intervening years lost and the plant in worse condition still.

The Union observed that a demonstration organised without reference to the management body, and in apparent tension with the stated position of Government, signals instability to the very investors the Company needs.

It said those responsible should state plainly on what analysis their alternative rests, and whose interests it is intended to serve.

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