Ghana: Fired Twitter staff finally receive pay-off

X, formerly Twitter, has at last paid off its staff who were fired from the company's African headquarters in Accra, Ghana.

In a statement on Sunday, Agency Seven Seven, the company providing legal representation to the staff, said it had "successfully led negotiations on behalf of former staff members of Twitter Ghana Ltd in their quest to get a fair settlement and repatriation expenses for foreign staff."

The former staff were sacked in November 2022, after Elon Musk's acquisition of the social media platform in October of that year and his subsequent decision to cut half of the workforce.

The staff had threatened to take X to court for failing to pay redundancy payment owed them.

They were given less than a month's notice before their dismissal and were then not paid the redundancy payment owed them. 

Under Ghanaian employment law, staff must be paid redundancy following negotiations with those affected by the redundancy.

"This is an important rule of Ghana's Labour and Employment Law landscape, and one that serves to mitigate against the employee hardship that can result when corporation engage in mass redundancy exercises," Agency Seven Seven said. 

Many of those who were fired had only been in the job a few months, after moving from neighbouring countries to take on the role. 

The ensuing battle for compensation reportedly impacted their mental health and financial situations. 

Musk's decision to cull the workforce resulted in 6,000 people losing their jobs globally. He said the downsizing was needed to cut costs.