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Some angry retired government workers have bared their teeth at the Ghana Trades union Congress (GTUC), accusing its leadership of squandering their investments. The retirees claimed each of them bought at least GH�50,000 worth of shares from the TUC as far back as 1996. The TUC mobilized the funds to create jobs under its Labour Enterprise Trust (LET). Investigations conducted by the Business Day revealed that the TUC was hoping to raise GH�25 billion from its members numbering about 500,000. But it only raise a seed capital of GH�5.7 billion out of 99,000 members. The Congress invested the money into five enterprises including Unique Insurance Company Limited, City Car Park in which it owned 20 percent of the shares and a water tanker service. The other investments are a radio taxi service and a workers� property ownership scheme. However, some retirees who bought some of the shares claimed that many of the businesses have since collapsed. They are also accusing the TUC of ignoring their request for information on their investments. A pensioner, who worked with the Savannah Agricultural Research Institute under the General Agricultural Workers Union told Business Day on condition of anonymity that the TUC had taken them for granted. �They used our money to buy water tankers for water distribution and taxis for the provision of transportation services. Whatever income came from that was not declared. Nothing has been declared for the past ten years. We don�t know what has happened to our investments. Where are the tankers and the taxis? Have they auctioned them or what,� he asked. Another pensioner, who pleaded anonymity, accused the leadership of GAWU of conniving with the TUC instead of asking it to account for the funds mobilized. �Most of us are on retirement, yet they are not declaring any divided. It is worrying us because no one is telling us anything. We have tried several times but the GAWU and TUC are not minding us. But they forced us to buy the shares. So we want the accounts of TUC investigated because we don�t know what they did with our investments, he lamented.� But Edward Kareweh, Deputy General Secretary of GAWU told Business Day that the accusations are unfounded. He said GAWU only facilitated the process for its members to buy the shares just like other TUC affiliated did. �This was not a GAWU investment. It was a TUC investment. The decision was taken at the TUC Congress, so all national unions were asked to urge their members to subscribe to the share purchasing. So we were obliged to reach our members to inform them accordingly. And that was the only thing we did. We didn�t collect the monies, but they were deducted at source and paid into the LET account at Merchant Bank. So that was our only role in it,� he explained. Mr. Kareweh confirmed that the water tanker and meter taxi businesses have all collapsed, leaving the Unique Insurance Company as the only viable business. He however urged the aggrieved retirees to exercise restraint as the current state of the enterprises does not warrant the payment of dividends. �They are still the owners of the shares. They don�t lose them because they are on retirement. Even very profitable organizations hardly pay dividends. I know that in instances where they have paid dividends it was so negligible. Because most of the workers bought the minimum shares and with the redenomination of the cedi, how much are they going to get from it? People just create the impression that there is a huge amount of money sitting there but that is far from the truth, he noted.