Withholding our August salary is a slap on democracy – CETAG

The Colleges of Education Teachers Association of Ghana (CETAG) has described the move by the government to withhold their August salary following their strike action as a "slap on Ghana’s democracy."

“I think this is a slap on the face of democracy and all meaning Ghanaians who believe in democratic dispensation must rise and speak against this kind of treatment," the Vice President for CETAG, John Newton Kumi said in a radio interview with Accra based Starr FM on Tuesday, August 22, 2023.

This followed a directive from the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC) asking the Controller and Accountant General's Department not to validate August salaries of CETAG members, because they are on strike and have done no work for the month.

The directive also includes the non payment of the allowances of the teaching staff of all the 46 Colleges of Education.

According to the Vice President for CETAG, Newton Kumi, the National Labour Commission (NLC) has not at any point declared their strike action illegal.

“All along CETAG has been law abiding and so our case was taken to the NLC by the employer. You know we’ve been fighting for these two years now. On no occasion has CETAG taken the government to NLC. It is the government that often takes CETAG there and we respond. NLC has given awards after compulsory arbitration but the government failed to honour them. We gave adequate information and time over a month to do the necessary thing so that we do not go the other way. All fell on dead eyes.” he said