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Management of Ghana Education Service urge teacher unions to call off strike action

Accra, Dec. 10, GNA
– Management of the Ghana Education Service(GES) has urged teachers to go to
school while it works to pay deserving staff their legacy areas by the Christmas
week.

This follows a
declaration by three teacher unions in the country to strike on Monday, in
demand of legacy arrears owed them.

A release signed by
Professor (Prof) Kwasi Opoku-Amankwa, Director General of the GES and copied to
the Ghana News Agency, said since 2017, the government has taken deliberate
steps to pay off arrears.

“It is significant
to note that as of September 2019, about 87,556 staff of GES have been paid
their full salary arrears, representing 95 per cent of total staff validated
for payment,” the release said.

It said on 9th
November 2019, Management of the GES received another set of data from the
Controller & Accountant-General covering 1,847 personnel who were to be
paid the salary arrears.

The release said
close examination of the data revealed a number of anomalies which would have
caused an excess payment of about GH¢11,300,376.

“Some of the
personnel were to be paid on underserved ranks, while some of the names had no
personal records on the GES payroll from 2012 to 2014 to establish that they
could be owed salary arrears over that period,” the release said.

It said some of the
listed personnel were not owed any salary arrears and yet had been credited
with huge sums of money and in some cases, up to GH¢58,000.00.

“Some female
personnel were to be paid Night Watchmen Allowances when they have never been
Night watchmen within the GES, and some staff who were owed about six months
had been credited for only two months,” said the release.

It said on the basis
of this, Management directed that the data be audited to verify the genuineness
of the payments, in order to ensure that only deserving staff were paid the
right amounts of money due them adding that the unions were duly informed of
the directive.

The release said on
Friday, November 29th, 2019, Management received a letter from the unions,
indicating that if the monies were not paid by Thursday December 5th, 2019,
they(the unions) would advise themselves.

It said management
was also made to understand that they had earlier walked out of a meeting with
the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations over the same subject.

Management invited
the unions to a meeting on Monday December 2nd, 2019, and at the meeting, one
of the issues discussed was the payment of the legacy arrears, the release
said.

It said the unions
were fully represented by their leadership at the meeting, where the management
of the GES and the unions agreed that the data should be vetted, and only those
eligible for payment should be paid with the right amounts.

The release said all
efforts were to be made to finish the vetting and also have personnel involved
paid the right amounts by Christmas.

It said the meeting
also agreed that the earlier indicated deadline of December 5 was not
realistic.

“It is with utmost
shock that management has learnt of the purported declaration of the strike and
management states, that the conduct of the union leaders is grossly an abuse of
the principle of good faith and good working relations established and nurtured
over the years,” the release said.

The release said it
was wrong to dissipate public funds to undeserved persons, adding that efforts
were being made to clean the data in order to ensure, that only deserving
persons were paid by the Christmas break, as agreed with the union leaders at
the meeting on December 2nd, 2019.

“Management wishes
to indicate that the strike cannot be legitimate, especially of personnel who
are not owed any arrears of salary, and calls on all to remain calm and go
about their duties while efforts are made to effect payment to deserving staff
as soon as possible,” it said.

The arrears known as
the ‘’legacy arrears’’ relate to outstanding salary arrears between 2012 and
2016 and affected about One Hundred and Twenty Thousand, Two Hundred and Thirty-Two
(120,232) staff of GES, the release said.

It said the arrears
was as a result of the policy by the then government which allowed the payment
of three (3) months of salary arrears owed any employee in the Public Service.

All other arrears
were to be justified and validated by the Audit Service before payment, the
release said.

Three teacher unions
which are the Ghana National Association of Teachers, the national Association
of Graduate Teachers and the Coalition of Concerned Teachers, have declared a
nation-wide strike over what they termed, legacy arrears owed them.

GNA

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