Members of the Northern Regional chapter of the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT) have served notice they will by October 12 lay down their tools in protest against government’s failure to pay their accumulated arrears.
Other regional branches of NAGRAT have issued similar threats although the national leadership is in talks with government over the matter.
The teachers are demanding payment of their incremental credits, three months pay policy on newly recruited and promoted teachers, transfer grants, travel and transport allowances.
[contextly_sidebar id=”WuX1INStQFEtIPsq6joAFiPE9F6wVNcc”]The Northern Regional NAGRAT Chairman, Mohammed Saani Alhassan at a news conference in Tamale, admonished government to immediately address their concerns.
“I will like to state clearly that as law abiding citizens, we are abiding by the two more days to the 10 days demanded by government; and if by October 12 2015 concrete and realistic progress is not made, we will be left with no option but to lay down our tools.”
According to Mohammed Saani Alhassan, the 4.5 million cedis government released for the payment of transfer grants and vehicle maintenance allowance has rather compounded NAGRAT’s problems.
“I think it is popular knowledge that 4.5 million cedis has been released for the payment of transfer grants and vehicle maintenance allowance: let us not be deceived that this amount has solved the problems but it has rather compounded our problems because we do not know how that amount was arrived at and we do not also know how many years of our problem or even how many members it will cater for.”
Mohammed Saani Alhassan asked government to pay the accumulated arrears into the individual teachers’ accounts. He further renewed calls for negotiations on the collective agreement between the Ghana Education Service (GES) and the teacher unions.
“The last collective agreement between government and the teacher unions was signed on 31stDecember 2009: this means that the collective agreement expired on 31st December 2011 and needed to be renegotiated.”
He stressed, “In consonance with this provision on life span, the unions notified government on the need to enter into negotiation of a new agreement and three years down the line, government has failed to meet us at the negotiation table for a new collective agreement.”
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By: Abdul Karim Naatogmah/Citifmonlione.com/Ghana