We'll give compensation to teachers - President declares

The meeting discussed teachers' strike and the way forward.

The members of   GNAT and NAGRAT embarked on a strike on Monday, March 18 to press home their demand for the early resolution of matters concerning their conditions of service.

Other concerns are the non-payment of vehicle maintenance allowance from 2012 till date and delays in resolving outstanding issues related to promotions.

The teachers are also dissatisfied with the fact that the FWSC had questioned the legal status of the GES management to negotiate proposals in the collective agreement with GNAT and NAGRAT.

A series of meetings have been held between the government and the leaders of the teacher unions to address the concerns of teachers.

At a meeting between the government and GNAT, NAGRAT and the Coalition of Concerned Teachers (CCT) on Friday, March 22, 2013, all the parties agreed that substantial progress had been made in addressing all the issues of concern, except teachers’ retention premium. 

After the closed-door meeting at the Flagstaff House yesterday, the President of GNAT, Mr Samuel Doe Alobuia, and the President of NAGRAT, Mr Christian Addai-Poku, told the Daily Graphic in separate interviews that they appreciated the President's promise to resolve the outstanding issues but indicated that the decision  to call off the strike or not would be taken at GNAT and NAGRAT Council meetings.

While Mr Alobuia was emphatic that GNAT might consider suspending the strike, pending the resolution of the outstanding issues, Mr Addai-Poku said he could not make any pronouncement on that.

In his remarks before the meeting went into a closed-door session, President Mahama said the government was willing to sit and listen to the concerns of every worker to get what he or she wanted.

He said the country was like a family where everybody had his or her demands but the budget could not cater for all needs, noting that in the same way, the national envelope was not enough to give every worker what he or she wanted.

Therefore, he said, the government could take the things step by step and asked the unions to understand the position of  the government.

President Mahama asked the striking teachers to call off their strike while negotiations continued with the FWSC.

He said many Ghanaians, including himself, had expressed worry over the strike, adding, "The industrial action  by teachers has worried everybody, including myself, as the Chief Executive."

The President asked teachers to sit down with the FWSC to arrive at an amicable settlement.

He thanked the TUC, the FWSC and all the teacher organisations for coming far with the negotiation.

"I hope that from today we will get teachers back to the classroom,” he said.

The President called for greater efficiency and proactiveness in dealing with issues in the public sector, saying persons put in positions must carry out their work well.

For instance, he said, every year many teachers joined the Ghana Education Service (GES) but the payment of their salaries delayed for up to six months.

For his part, the Secretary General of the TUC, Mr Kofi Asamoah, said many Ghanaians had expressed concern over the timing of the strike, with some feeling that  teachers were insensitive to the plight of students.

He expressed worry that the institutions in charge of labour issues waited till issues degenerated into strike before they began to address them.

 Mr Asamoah said the teachers’ issues had to do with promotion and normal administrative work and indicated that "it should not have led to the strike".

He said the situation raised questions as to whether the agencies had the human resource to deal with workers’ issues.

"If the issues were given the needed attention, they would not have gone this way," he said.

Mr Asamoah asked the President to help resolve the issue, so that they did not recur.

The Minister of Education, Professor Jane Naana Opoku Agyemang, said the government was committed to its side of the bargain and expressed the hope that the unions would also remain committed to their side.

Story by Musah Jahaya Jafaru