ATL Fires 600 Workers

Akosombo Textiles Limited (ATL) has fired 600 workers and shutdown its new plant which has spinning and weaving departments.

The move follows shortage of raw materials for production and lack of money to run the spinning and weaving departments.

Of the sacked workers, 300 are said to be permanent staff while the remaining 300 workers are contract staff.

The Coalition of Textile Workers in Ghana is blaming piracy for the woes of the textile company.

Spokesman for the workers, John Kofi Abeka, said in an interview that government is unwilling to deal with the piracy menace, after postponing a meeting on the roadmap to deal with pirated textiles.

"Piracy is killing the sale of the textiles industry," he said on Accra FM, revealing that the remaining staff of the company "have also not been paid for the past four months."

He continued:'We are in Ghana but we are working for the economies of China and other countries due to piracy, this is a huge problem that the government must deal with. We do not plan to hit the streets to protest, all we want is the implementation of the roadmap given by the government to deal with piracy.'

'The initial date they gave for the commencement was September 2018 but they have told us that it has been shifted to 15th October. We don't understand why this action cannot be taken immediately because the piracy is killing our businesses." he said.

The textile industry has in the last decade been complaining about the influx of cheap pirated textiles from China and other countries.

In 2016, the Ghana Textile Printing (GTP) Limited dismissed 100 workers following operational challenges.