The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Ghana Cylinder Manufacturing Company Limited (GCMCL) Frances Essiam, has locked horns with the Board of the company under which she serves and draws her powers from as CEO.
Ms.Essiam, is being accused of procurement malfeasance and corruption charges by the Board.
She has been written to by the Board, demanding to explain why she unilaterally took certain decisions without consulting or seeking approval from the governing body.
Interestingly, a scheduled meeting by the Board yesterday to look into issues concerning Ms.Essiam and possibly pass a resolution asking her to step aside for investigations, could not happen.
According to Herald’s source, before the Board could make it way to the meeting room at the premises of the company, she reportedly brought activities at the company to a halt early Tuesday morning.
The hotheaded and failed 2012 parliamentary aspirant for the Adenta Constituency is reported to have used phone calls to order all workers not to come to work, until further notice with the exception of those at the security department.
She ensured the doors and gates of the company were shut, and any worker or members of the public who went to the premises for business was turned away according to her order.
Ms.Essiam, is said to be havinga bad working relationship with the Board chairman, who happens to be a former Member of Parliament (MP) for Effiduase-Asokore, Frank BoakyeAgyen.
She is said to have insisted, she won’t allow the Board chairman to use the company’s letterhead for anything. She has also fired the Finance Manager, who protested against some of her actions, especially misappropriation of funds.
The sacked Finance Manager, has reportedly written an eight-page petition against her to the President, Nana Akufo-Addo, but the President is yet to take action.
Ms. Essiam, has already served notice she would sue the Board chairman at the law courtto clear her name and safeguard her enviable reputation.
“For all the things that he [board chairman] said, I will take the appropriate means administratively, legally to seek redress and repair my image.
“The law will take its course…and trust me the law will take its course, because I am talking as a woman, whose reputation is being wounded,” she said.
A letter signed by the Board chairman of the company,has also questioned why she went for a loan to pay workers of GCMCL without authorization from the board.
The Board chairman, revealed Ms.Essiam only verbally told the Board about the loan,long after securing it.
A copy of his letter sighted my The Herald also read; “You have awarded several contracts for purchase and construction works”….. “Why you neither sought the approval of the Ministry of Energy when there was no Board in place nor seek approval from the Board when the Board when was duly constituted”.
The letter titled: ‘Urgent issues for which the board needs answers from the CEO’ dated April 13, 2018 Mr. Boakye Agyen also stated in parts that : “….at the meeting of the board on the 5th of April 2018, members unanimously asked me to write to you to demand answers for the following actions of yours; in ordering the company’s old and disused machinery for sale as scraps, did you follow due process laid by law? If yes, please state the processes you followed”.
But in an interview on Accra-based Starr FM, Ms. Essiam said, the allegations were a “barrage of lies” and “borne out of hatred and malice.”
Describing herself as a woman of “substance” and “incorruptible” Ms. Essiam hinted that she would seek legal action against the company’s Board chairman for impugning her integrity.
“For all the things that he [board chairman] said, I will take the appropriate means administratively, legally to seek redress and repair my image,” she stated.
“The law will take its course…and trust me the law will take its course, because I am talking as a woman, whose reputation is being wounded,” she added.
She thus urged the Board chairman of the company to be ready to furnish the courts with evidence of her impropriety at the company.
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