The Public Services Workers Union (PSWU) of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under the Trades Union Congress (TUC) is up in arms against the Minister responsible for Works and Housing – Kojo Oppong Nkrumah, over a leaked Memo regarding ministerial bungalows.
Available information says Minister Oppong Nkrumah has written to direct that the official bungalow of the Executive Director of the EPA be allocated to the newly appointed Minister for the Interior, Henry Quartey. This is a bungalow that has been occupied by successive Executive Directors of the Agency since 1974, including the immediate past Boss, Dr. Henry Kwabena Kokofu.
We gathered that the said land was allocated to the EPA by the then Housing Department following which the EPA put up its current bungalow in 1974. Later in the 90s, the EPA officially purchased the structure from the Housing Department.
In a rather unfortunate incidence, the current Executive Director of the EPA, Dr. Kingsley Krugu, is being forced out by Minister Oppong Nkrumah so he can relocate the building to his friend Henry Quartey who is now the Minister in-charge of the Interior.
Officials are wondering where the current ED of the EPA is to move to.
Some of the workers of the Agency are of the view that the EPA has invested a lot of money into the edifice and so must not be allowed to relinquish it just like that; others are of the view that the government is intentionally taking away the bungalow because of its interest in the land and its location.
There is a growing agitation among workers at the EPA as a sign of anger and disapproval of the action of the Works and Housing Minister whom they are accusing of moving to make their Executive Director homeless.
When we recently visited the premises Headquarters of the EPA, we saw red bands all over the place. Discussions around the corridors of the EPA PUWU of the TUC point to series of industrial actions if Government does not halt plans to take the official bungalow of the EPA boss for the Minister of the Interior
By Edzorna Francis Mensah