The Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC) has defended its directive to the Controller and Accountant General to freeze the July salaries of members of the Colleges of Education Teachers Association of Ghana (CETAG).
In a news conference held in Kumasi on Monday, July 22, CETAG warned that it would resist any illegal attempts to freeze members’ salaries, vowing to intensify its indefinite strike until the arbitral award and negotiated service conditions are implemented.
CETAG members from all 46 colleges of education nationwide have been on strike since last month. The strike, which is in response to the government’s refusal to implement their arbitral award and conditions of service, has forced students to leave campuses.
Speaking to Citi News, the Director General of GTEC, Prof. Ahmed Jinapor Abdulai, appealed to the striking teachers to return to the classrooms, assuring them that the government is working to meet all of CETAG’s demands.
“Well, I think it’s based on logic, as you’re aware, CETAG has not been in the classroom since June 14. Today is July 23, that is more than a month and in this country, we use what we call a salary. You need to be validated before you are paid, and that validation is informed by your presence at your workplace.
“So by logic, it means that they cannot be validated. So the reason why they are not being paid their July salary is because they are not at post and it’s a very simple, straightforward answer. So I want to use this podium or this medium to retreat the call on CETAG for them to call off their strike.
“The tiniest issue had to be, for them, the discrimination in terms of migration, where some will be migrated onto their university scheme of service whilst others will stay on the harmonised scheme of service of the colleges of education.
“This is not going to happen, all staff and faculty are going to be migrated onto the scheme of service of their affiliate universities.”
