The three Teacher Unions – Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT) and the Coalition of Concerned Teachers Ghana (CCT-GH) have charged government to pay all the arrears of its members before they call off their strike.
Speaking on PM Express on Monday, Deputy General Secretary of GNAT, Daniel Afedu described the payment of arrears as a “simple thing” and hoped government will not let it affect the academic calendar of students in the country.
“As a parent, if you see things like this, you will definitely not be happy. Our work is a sacrificial job, but we have gotten to a point that we think there is nothing that we can do than to take this unfortunate option.
“We are talking of arrears that date as far back as 2012 to 2016,” the administrator in charge of Labor Relations stressed.
The three Unions in a jointly signed statement on Thursday, December 5, 2019, declared an industrial action that was to take effect on Monday, December 9, 2019.
According to the teacher Unions, this follows a series of engagements with the government on Legacy Arrears incurred between 2012 and 2016.
They have, therefore, directed all members to stay out of classrooms across the country in protests of the “sufferings” endured “as a result of the negligence.”
Mr Afedu indicated some teachers live in debt due to unpaid arrears by government which consequently affects the productivity of teachers at school.
“Some members have worked for more than four years. The person has borrowed money and lived virtually at the mercy of people thinking that at the end of the day when the salaries come, he will get the money to pay the loans and he has contracted. But that doesn’t happen.”
He further attributed the current predicament to the three-month pay policy introduced by the Mahama government to make up for several months of accrued salaries.
“In fact when the policy came we resisted it as Unions, but you know government is government. So they went ahead to implement the policy, and that is what has brought us to where we find ourselves today,” he stated.
