Ghana’s major teacher unions – GNAT, NAGRAT and CCT-G – have declared a nationwide strike, beginning Monday, December 9.
This was made known to journalists at a joint press conference held on Thursday, December 5.
The teacher unions admitted being invited to a meeting on Thursday, November 28 by the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations in the presence of representatives of the Ghana Education Service (GES), the Controller and Accountant General’s Department (CAGD) and the Ghana Audit Service (GAS).
The subject of the meeting was the legacy arrears of 2012 to 2016.
“Primarily, we the unions were concerned with the payment of the said arrears, because our checks had revealed that the arrears had been verified and approved for payment by the Controller and Accountant General’s Internal Audit Unit, about three weeks earlier,” they said.
The three teacher unions also claimed that they had been informed that the verified data had been sent to GES for review.
But GES refused to take action after claiming there were discrepancies with some of the data as having been paid already, 3news.com gathered.
According to the GES, some teachers were paid on ranks they were not on while many others did not have records on the payroll between 2012 and 2014.
The Service cited how some female teachers were paid as Night Watchmen.
The teacher unions jointly rejected the claims by GES by indicating that the data had been verified by a professional body as the CAGD.
They consequently gave GES up till Thursday, December 5 to pay all the arrears.
“We are not prepared to see our teachers suffer, as a result of the negligence of any person or body.”
They said their pleas have all fallen on deaf ears.
“In the light of this development, we, GNAT, NAGRAT and CCT-G, do hereby declare a strike action by our members, effective Monday.”
Source: 3news.com|Ghana