The Ministry of Education has described the strike declared by the University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG) as unfortunate.
The Public Relations Officer of the Ministry, Paul Krampah told Citi News, “it is just unfortunate for UTAG to embark on a strike.”
UTAG declared an indefinite strike on Thursday over what they considered as government’s deliberate attempt to unduly delay payment of their book and research allowance.
But according to the Ministry, negotiations were still ongoing when the Association declared the strike.
Mr. Krampah disclosed that “there was no disagreement we met them last Wednesday the minister for employment and labor relations actually chaired the meeting”.
At the said meeting, an agreement was reached that the book and research allowance will be paid.
But according to Mr. Krampah UTAG “said they were going to discuss the content of MOU with their members who were then meeting at the University of Ghana” after asking for the mode of payment due to the depreciation of the cedi against the dollar.
According to the Ministry’s PRO, they agreed to start payment with the current budgeted amount and address the challenge of differences later.
He said his outfit is therefore surprised to hear UTAG declaring strike adding that the association has not kept faith with the Ministry.
“We were actually waiting for them to come back for us to sign the agreement only for us to realize that they had gone ahead to declare a strike action,” he said.
Magdalene Larnyoh/citifmonline.com/Ghana