Teacher unions suspend strike
Teacher unions in the country have rescinded their decision to withdraw their services from, pending the outcome of the validation exercise.
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The General Secretary of the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), Mr David Ofori Acheampong, who announced this, therefore, called on members of the unions to remain calm and continue with their core mandate.
He was addressing journalists at the Mensvic Grand Hotel, East Legon in Accra, after a consultation session between the leadership of the teacher unions and the ministries of Education and Employment and Labour Relations, the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission (FWSC) and the Ghana Education Service (GES).
The unions had signalled their intention to embark on an industrial action to back their demands for the payment of their salary arrears and other allowances.
Last Thursday, all the parties involved in the negotiation issued a memorandum of understanding (MoU) in which the government appealed to the unions to suspend the intended strike, while the parties went on off-site to validate application forms for payment of not more than three months’ salary arrears.
Volume of work
Mr Acheampong said the magnitude of the work before the validation team indicated that the February 29 deadline given to complete the first phase was woefully inadequate.
He said it was expected that two more weeks would have to be added for the exercise to be completed.
“We have been overwhelmed by the quantity of forms before us. Initially, the GES had told us that the number of forms available was about 14,000, out of which 7,000 had been validated and paid.
“When we arrived at the centre, the GES gave data showing over 34,000 forms and more are coming. It is estimated that we will hit more than 60,000 forms by the end of the process,” he told journalists.
He said it came to light that 17 districts had not yet submitted any forms for validation and, therefore, entreated all district directors of education to make sure that all such application forms in their custody were forwarded to the GES Headquarters for onward submission to the validators immediately.
Mr Acheampong said the government had shown enough commitment to the process by bringing an additional 22 people from the Ghana Audit Service to augment the existing 35 workforce currently doing the validation.
Commitment
“The teacher unions have, therefore, committed ourselves to cooperate by supporting the extension of time in order to complete the entire exercise.
“We have taken this course of action because we want our members who have been victims of this policy to have their forms validated and their salary arrears paid,” he added.
Assurance
In a remark, the Deputy Minister of Education in charge of Tertiary, Mr Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, said it was gratifying that the teacher unions had taken such an important decision.
He said the fact that the teachers had suspended the strike did not mean that the government would relent in the validation exercise.
GES admittance
The Director-General of the GES, Mr Jacob Kor, admitted lapses on the part of his outfit in the processing of documents of teachers for validation for the payment of three years’ arrears owed teachers and indicated that the service would build the capacities of its staff to avert such lapses in the future.
