Stop telling teachers to wait more for legacy arrears payment - Carbonou
Suggestions that teacher unions can afford the government a little more time to pay the legacy arrears has been met with a rather uncompromising retort by the President of the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT), Mr Eric Angel Carbonou.
There have been some suggestions that the teachers have been able to wait for seven years since 2012 for the government to resolve the matter of the legacy arrears and therefore why can't they [teachers] wait for a few more months for it to be completely resolved but to resort to strike action.
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But responding to it, Mr Carbonou said, "that is a very stupid conclusion people are making."
To him, "from 2012, we have been taking action. Go back to your news portals, you will realise that NAGRAT, GNAT, CCT-GH have embarked on demonstrations, have embarked on strike actions from 2012 till today. So for people to be making such spurious statements, I don't know where they are coming from," Mr Carbonou said in a radio interview with Accra based Citi FM on Wednesday evening [December 11, 2019], in response to the court order for the teachers to return to the classroom, following the declaration that the strike was illegal.
To Mr Carbonou, per what the teachers have experienced in the past, "I can assure you at the end of this year [2019], this matter would not have been resolved completely, that I can assure you," he said in the Citi FM radio interview monitored by Graphic Online.
Strike
Last Monday, members of the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT) and the Coalition of Concerned Teachers-Ghana (CCT-GH) began a nationwide strike due to what they said were delays in the payment of legacy arrears which spanned between 2012-2016.
The unions said, among other things, that they were concerned about the payment of the arrears because their checks had 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, they said when the verified data were handed over to the Ghana Education Service (GES) for review and action, the GES would not budge because it claimed some discrepancies had been discovered with some of the payments already effected.
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Payment schedule
A source at the Controller and Accountant General's Department (CAGD) who spoke to Graphic Online's Severious Kale-Dery and Emmanuel Bonney, said although about 120,232 names were submitted for the payment of the legacy arrears owed staff between 2012 and 2016, the number was pruned down to 92,164 after the audit and validation.
The validation and auditing carried out by the CAGD included checking the date of employment, the date of assumption of duty, the first date of payment of salary and the qualification as well as the ranks of all those who applied for payment.
Figures at the GES seen by Graphic Online shows that per the payment schedule of those who qualified, out of 63,212 names cleared by the CAGD in March 2019 for further interrogation by the CAGD, 61,612 merited payment and were paid on March 17, 2019.
Additionally, on March 18, 2019, the CAGD paid 12,016 out of a total of out of 13,177 names submitted by the AGD.
According to the payment schedule, on August 18, 2019, all of the 13,928 affected workers whose names were submitted were dully paid.
That means that a total of 3,408 names submitted by the CAGD were found not to have merited payment of the legacy arrears.
However, a source at the GES told Graphic Online's Severious Kale-Dery and Emmanuel Bonney that even though 1,200 staff were being paid this month, "that figure is a provisional one."
"It means that if we finish with our checks and a staff in that 1,200 is found not to have deserved payment but has been paid, he or she will have to refund whatever that he or she had been paid," the source explained.
Queried staff
It explained that for instance, about 743 of the 1,847 that was cleared by the AGD had been identified not deserving to be paid.
"So, it means if our checks are correct, 96 of them will be required to refund whatever that he or she had received," the source said, adding that the GES would be publishing the list of the 743 staff, whose request for payment had been queried.
It, however requested staff whose names were among the 743 and they strongly felt they deserved to be paid should reapply with all the relevant documents for verification and possible consideration for payment.
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NLC
A statement by the Chairman of the NLC, Mr Andy Kwabena Asamoah, said on December 5, 2019, the commission invited the representatives of the Ghana Education Service (GES), Ministry of Education and Fair Wages and Salary Commission, National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT), the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) and the Coalition of Concerned Teachers (CCT-GH) to appear before it to resolve the impasse relating to the legacy arrears which had culminated in a threat of strike.
“The unions failed to appear before the commission and to call off their threatened strike which was to take effect from December 9, 2019.
“Having disobeyed the directive of the NLC, issued together with its letter summoning the parties to appear before it on December 10, 2019, as well as embarking on an illegal strike action, the commission upon an application to the high court ...secured an injunction restraining the said unions,” it said.
The NLC on Tuesday directed the striking teachers to call off their industrial action and return to work.
It said in the exercise of the authority conferred in it by Section 139 (1)(b) of Act 651, it found the associations’ action in violation of Act 651 and, therefore, the ongoing strike by the unions was illegal.
A statement signed by the Chairman of the NLC, Mr Andy Kwabena Asamoah, said the commission had, on Tuesday, December 10, 2019, met the representatives of the Ghana Education Service (GES), the Ministry of Education and the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission, but representatives of the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT), the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) and the Coalition of Concerned Teachers (CCT-GH) were absent.
The statement said NAGRAT, GNAT and CCT-GH failed to notify the NLC and its employer of the ongoing nationwide strike, in contravention of Section 159 of the Labour Act 2003, Act 651.
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