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Organizers of the ‘Hands Off Our Hotels’ demonstration are gearing up to protest the sale of a 60% stake in six hotels owned by the Social Security and National Insurance Trust (SSNIT) on Tuesday, June 17.
Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, Member of Parliament for North Tongu and a convener of the demonstration, has petitioned the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) against the sale to Agriculture Minister Bryan Acheampong.
Ablakwa argues that selling state properties to government officials is an abuse of power. He emphasized a key demand in their petition to President Akufo-Addo during Tuesday’s protest is for him to immediately halt the sale to Bryan Acheampong.
“We insist that President Akufo-Addo must immediately stop the sale of our SSNIT hotels. We want an immediate declaration from the president because since we started, all he has done is tell Organised Labour to go and meet the Employment Minister at which meeting, Organised Labour told us that they tried to convince them to allow the sale, so clearly, the president and his appointees don’t want to stop the sale, and we are going to insist that they back out.
“We are also demanding that state assets should no longer be sold, particularly the profitable ones.”
The Public Relations Officer of the Trades Union Congress, Naa Ayele Ardayfio Sekyere, declared support for the protest and reiterated the demand for public officials to stay off the hotels.
“This is a national call and it is exciting that our MPs are leading this. Let’s look at it how is it that every now and again, we have issues with SSNIT? You can’t do the same thing for so many times and expect different results, we are just not making progress as far as SSNIT is concerned.
“This is a national call for us, and we must all be interested because I don’t want to work for over 40 years and go on retirement as a pauper so this is a call for all of us. Not just Hands Off Our Hotels but all those lands that are being sold.”
