CETAG accuses gov’t of breach of negotiations

The College of Education Teachers Association of Ghana (CETAG) has accused government of breaching a memorandum of understating aimed at resolving their grievances.

Last year, CETAG embarked on a one-month strike that led to the closure of the Colleges of Education, due to non-paymentof their Interim Market Premium and Book and Research allowance.

They later called off the strike after the National Labour Commission (NLC) ordered a meeting between them and the government.

But General Secretary of CETAG, Prince Obeng-Himah, has told Citi News that, government would have itself to blame for their next line of action for failing to fulfil its part of an agreement expected to end the stalemate.

“We needed the negotiations proper but that is one part of it. The other part is to commit what we have negotiated into agreement – that is the road map to pay back. After negotiations we signed a communiqué and in that communiqué we explicitly wrote and agreed that we were going to meet and commit ourselves to the road map that will lead to what we have negotiated not later than the 15^th of February.”

“As we speak now, February is almost ended. We have waited for a week and nothing is happening. You call the Ministry of Employment, the Fair Wages and Salary Commission and the Finance Ministry and they are shifting blame. We want to make it clear that we won’t sit down for them to play that fast one on us. In the coming days we are going to take a decision that will be in the interest of our people if they don’t come clear on the matter,” he stated.

Background

CETAG called off its strike because it was pleased with NLC’s intervention.

Before that, previous negotiations between the association and other stakeholders including the Ministry of Education, Fair Wages and Salaries Commission and the National Council on Tertiary Education (NCTE) yielded no positive results.

The NCTE argued that CETAG did not have the right to declare a strike when negotiations were ongoing.

CETAG was also accused of being unreasonable and failing to present itself for negotiations on the matter, drawing out the impasse.

CETAG showed signs of compromising on its stiff stance.

Later, CETAG threatened to go to court to push for the closure of the colleges for the rest of the semester in line with the law governing the colleges, which states that colleges must be closed down and the semester annulled if academic work halts for more than three weeks.

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By: citinewsroom.com