Workers at the Volta Aluminium Company (VALCO) have called for the immediate removal of the Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Integrated Aluminium Development Corporation (GIADEC), Reindorf Twumasi Ankrah, accusing him of mismanagement and refusal to engage stakeholders.
The workers’ union staged a protest on Monday, February 9, expressing dissatisfaction with what they described as Mr. Ankrah’s authoritarian leadership style and alleged incompetence.
According to the union, the GIADEC CEO’s portrayal of VALCO as a debt-ridden company in need of external investment is misleading and serves as a pretext to sell the state-owned enterprise.
Addressing the protesters, the Local Union Chairman, Mr. Samuel Watchman Agyeman, said all attempts to engage Mr. Ankrah in dialogue had been ignored, including a formal letter sent on December 18.
“He doesn’t take advice from anybody. What he says he wants to do, whether good or bad, is what he does,” Mr. Agyeman alleged, adding that the CEO was “not fit to occupy a leadership position.”
The union maintains that VALCO has the inherent capacity to operate profitably without ceding control to external investors.
They describe the ongoing search for a strategic partner as a de facto sale of a national asset and are demanding an immediate halt to the process pending a transparent review of the company’s true potential.
Ankrah Clarifies Position
In response, Mr. Twumasi Ankrah has clarified the government’s position on the land dispute surrounding the proposed aluminium industrial park.
Speaking on Asempa FM’s Ekosiisen programme on Monday, February 9, he emphasised that he is acting as a public servant under the directive of President John Dramani Mahama and his administration.
“If the government outlines a programme and says that I am in charge, then it is my duty—however onerous—to ensure that it is carried out,” he said.
Mr. Ankrah explained that the aluminium industrial park initiative was inspired by a similar project the President observed abroad and is intended to be replicated in Ghana.
On the contentious issue of land ownership, he stated that the Tema Development Corporation (TDC), established in 1962, holds legal title to the land in question.
He traced the acquisition to an Executive Instrument issued in 1954, under which the colonial administration vested the land in TDC—well before the establishment of VALCO.
“There are documents indicating that, for VALCO to even enter the land, they obtained a right of entry from TDC,” he said.
He further explained that in April 2017, VALCO formally applied for the renewal of its expired lease with TDC. The matter was resolved by granting VALCO rights only to the portion on which its plant is located, excluding the remaining land.
By October 2024 or 2025, TDC had formally notified VALCO that the surplus land had been repossessed.
Based on this development, Mr. Ankrah said he approached TDC to request the release of the land for the industrial park project.
“GIADEC, as the regulator, together with the company, can enter into a strategic partnership to develop a portion of the land strictly for aluminium-related activities,” he said.
He noted that there is a “strong rebuttable presumption” in favour of TDC’s ownership of the land and challenged any opposing party to provide documentary evidence. According to him, no such evidence has been presented so far.
Mr. Ankrah confirmed that he, the Managing Director of TDC, and a representative of VALCO conducted a joint site inspection last Sunday, with preparatory work currently underway.
He disclosed that the proposed development will cover between 122 and 127 hectares—significantly smaller than the 7,550-hectare aluminium industrial park in Benin, which served as the model for the project.
On employment, he said the initiative is expected to generate at least 10,000 direct jobs, mainly for young people between the ages of 20 and 35.
Although smaller than the Benin project, which employs over 30,000 workers across three shifts, Mr. Ankrah said the Ghanaian industrial park would make a significant contribution to youth employment and the aluminium value chain.
