Three major Teacher Unions declare strike

By Patience Gbeze, GNA

Accra, Dec. 5, GNA - Three major Teacher Unions of the Ghana Education Service, Thursday, announced their over 300,000 members would from Monday, December 9, stay away from the classrooms until all their Legacy Salary Arrears of 2012 to 2016 are paid.

The Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT), and the Coalition of Concerned Teachers-Ghana (CCT-GH), announced their decision at a joint media conference in Accra, where they also discussed the developments and happenings on the education.

Ms Philippa Larsen, National President of GNAT, said though Union’s checks revealed that the arrears had been verified and approved for payment by the Controller and Accountant General's Internal Audit Unit, the Ghana Education Service had allegedly blocked its payment over some claims of discrepancies.

According to her, following the approval three weeks ago, it was handed over to the GES for review, and action.

"The GES will not budge, because it claimed some discrepancies had been discovered with some of the payments already effected,” she said.

“Some of the claims of GES are that some teachers were paid on ranks they were not on; some teachers had no personal record on the payroll between 2012 and 2014.

“Others are that some teachers were not owed any arrears, yet were credited with huge amounts of money; some teachers were employed as pupil teachers, but were paid as senior superintendents, while some female employees were to be paid Night Watchman allowance”.

However, Ms Larsen said the Unions disagreed with the reasons being given for the holdup because they believed that input had been done by a professional entity for the resultant payments to be effected.

Besides, it had been sanctioned by “the Controller and Accountant General's own Audit Unit".

"Consequently, we gave our employer up to December 5, 2019, to pay all the arrears due our teachers, failure of which we would advise ourselves.

"We are not prepared to see our Teachers suffer, as a result of the negligence of any person or body," she said.

King Awudu Ali, President of CCT-GHANA, explained that they had been chasing the arrears since 2016 and thus had served several notices to the Labour Commission, for which they are relying on for their strike.

Mr Thomas T. Musah, the General Secretary of GNAT, said they had exhausted all avenues to address the issue but to no avail.

Mr Angel Carbonu, President of NAGRAT, said the Controller and Accountant General's Audit Service should hold themselves accountable for the mistakes or any anomalies the GES was concerned about.

"Our concern now is for the employer to pay our members who are deserving and thrash out the case with those involved in their claims."

GNA

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