STMA: Teacher Unions call strike over unpaid arrears

The Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT) and the Coalition of Concerned Teachers Ghana (CCT-GH), have declared a strike over salary arrears.

According to the teacher unions, the latest action which took effect on Monday, December 9, 2019, follows a series of engagements with the government on Legacy Arrears incurred between 2012 and 2016.

The three unions in the jointly signed statement say the lack of adherence on the part of the government to these demands has necessitated the strike. They, therefore, directed all members to stay out of classrooms across the country in protests of the “sufferings” endured “as a result of the negligence.”

“Primarily, we the unions were concerned with the payment of said arrears, because our checks 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.

“However, we were informed that when the verified data was handed over to the GES [Ghana Education Service] for review and action, the GES would not budge, because it claimed some discrepancies had been discovered with some of the payments already effected,” the statement read in part.

Some of the claims said to be highlighted by the GES according to the striking teachers were that “some of the teachers were paid on ranks they were on” while others “had no personal records on the payroll between 2012-2014.”

The teachers say they reject the assertions because they “believed the inputs had been done by a professional entity for the resultant payments to be effected and had been sanctioned by the Controller and Accountant General’s own Internal Audit Unit. Consequently, we gave our employer up to 5th December 2019, to pay all the arrears to our teachers, failure of which we would advise ourselves”.

 

Reports reaching egudze news indicates, the recent strike declared by the various teacher unions in the country has taken effect in the various schools in the Sekondi Takoradi Metropolis. 

After a visit to some schools in the Sekondi Takoradi Metropolis, observed that teaching and learning has been inactive as most classrooms were without a single professional teacher of the various unions that declared the strike.

There are however some schools which have been completely closed down due to the strike action.

Western Region Secretary of the Ghana National Association of teachers (GNAT), Nicholas Taylor, in an interview indicated that the strike is being adhered to by all the teacher unions in the country. According to him, the Ghana Education Service is failing to process the salary arrears of over two hundred thousand teachers.

He further indicated that, they will only return to the classrooms after their legacy arrears have been fully paid.

Here in the metropolis, schools such as the Shama Model JHS, Apremdo Catholic JHS, Al-Azharraya Islamic School in Effiakuma, Saint Anthony of Padua JHS, Korsah Complex and the Takoradi Senior High School, were opened but teachers had vacated the classroom.

They were either seen under sheds, staff rooms, or canteens, conversing, or doing other non-academic activity.

Some teachers that interacted with our reporter Portia Cudjoe explained that “it will be a betrayal for any teacher to defy the rules by the national leadership of the association if they go ahead to teach, untill our leaders at the national level ask us to back to class and teach, we are not teaching. ”

"In Ghana, they always place the students at the centre leaving the welfare of the teachers who teaches them, the government is not being fair to us." He stated.

"The President and his Ministers, who taught them to come this far, isn't we the teachers?" He rhetorically asked.

The strike took effect on 9, December, 2019 still counting on....