Citing the work environment at Nestle Ghana Limited, where nursing mothers are offered 16 weeks maternity leave and a facility to breastfeed their babies at regular intervals during working hours, a Deputy Minister at the Ministry, Mr Bright Wereko-Brobbey, described the initiative as commendable and urged others to emulate it.

Mr Wereko-Brobbey made the commendation when he toured the factory of Nestle Ghana in Tema last Thursday.

He was accompanied by the acting Chief Inspector of Factories, Mr Ohene Mensah; the acting Chief Labour Officer, Mr Eugene Kollotey; the Tema Metropolitan Labour Officer, Mr Rexford Asubonteng, and other directors of the ministry.

The purpose of the tour was to familiarise himself with the activities and operations of Nestle in Ghana.

Nestle currently offers nursing mothers 16 weeks maternity leave instead of the conventional 12 weeks. It also gives fathers five working days paternity leave to enhance family bonding.

Rationale for the visit

Mr Wireko-Brobbey, who is also the MP for Hemang Lower Denkyira Constituency, explained that since they took over in January 2017, they had been on a mission to interact with industry players to map out strategies to improve employment on and labour situations in Ghana.

He disclosed that the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations would soon roll out a Labour Market Information System to facilitate scientific studies into labour market issues, including the determination of the unemployment rate in Ghana.

According to him, there are over nine to 10 million workers in Ghana but the government could only employ two million of them; hence, the need for the government to work with the private sector to absorb the remainder.

To facilitate this, the government is developing a system which will sanitise the system and help industries and companies  employ the right kind of people with the right skills for the job.

Mr Wireko-Brobbey commended the management of Nestle for the workplace safety measures in place and urged them to sustain it.

Collaboration

The Human Resource Manager at Nestle responsible for the Coastal Cluster-Ghana, Liberia and Sierra Leone, Ms Agnes Kafui Forson, expressed her appreciation to the ministry for the visit.

She appealed to the government to evolve a policy that would promote healthy lifestyles and wellness among the Ghanaian workforce to boost productivity, creativity and wealth creation at the workplace.

The Corporate Communications and Public Affairs Manager at Nestle Ghana, Ms Ama Amoah, said through its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives the company had embarked on several initiatives which had impacted on the lives of many in society.

She said under the Nestle Healthy Kids project, for instance, about 24,000 pupils in five regions had benefitted from the project “which seeks to promote healthy diets and lifestyles, including physical activity.”

She said Nestlé was committed to implementing continuous nutrition education programmes for healthcare professionals. To that end, a total of 1,300 healthcare professionals have participated in the different trainings to enhance their capacity.