About 3000 workers of the West Africa Mills Company Limited (WAMCO), a Takoradi-based cocoa processing firm, have been asked to go home following the inability of the company sell its products on the international market. The local Union Chairman, Mr. Jimmy Gyan, who broke the sad news to the workers at a recent meeting held in Takoradi, said the production house of the company was full of finished products, but they were having problems marketing them, due to the global economic crisis. Jimmy confirmed the meeting and the decision to ask the workers to go home, when a reporter of the Chronicle contacted him on phone. He could however not tell when the workers would return to work. A management source also told the paper that the workers had been asked to go home because of the global economic crunch, and that they had not been laid off as was being perceived by some of them. The source further said that the company had materials available for production, but due to the global economic crisis they had decided to suspend production. Another source also confided that though the global economic crisis had contributed to the current status of the company, there also appears to be a conflict between the German owners of the company, and the Cocoa Marketing Company (CMC), which is affecting the smooth running of the company. Workers of the company who spoke with The Chronicle in an interview, dismissed the claim that they had been asked to go home and that they would be recalled. To them they had been laid-off, because all their salaries had been paid to them. They dismissed management's position that they had been asked to go home because of the global economic crisis. The workers contended that the struggle over the ownership of the company, coupled with the absence of a board of directors, was the source of the crisis the company was facing. Source: Ghanaian Chronicle