Government has cheated us for far too long – CETAG President

Government has cheated us for far too long – CETAG President

Prince Obeng-Himah, president of the Colleges of Education Teachers Association of Ghana (CETAG), claims that the government has taken advantage of his union’s members for an excessive amount of time.

Should the government fail to prioritize their welfare, the Colleges of Education Teachers Association of Ghana (CETAG) and the Colleges of Education Non-Teaching Staff Association of Ghana (CENTSAG) have vowed to go on strike beginning on Friday, November 11.

The president of CETAG highlighted on JoyNews’ PM Express that the government has been mostly ignoring the staff associations’ members who work in the 46 institutions of education throughout the nation for far too long.

His explanation of the predicament was as follows: “The members who work in the universities are one of the few people who have been defrauded and slighted for far too long.

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The initial negotiation took place in 2017, but it wasn’t until 2021 that we threatened or went on strike before the government decided to provide us with some sort of compensation for failing to pay what we negotiated for in 2017.

It means that from that point until 2021, we were free of all service-related restrictions.

Eventually, when that compensation was paid to us, the MOU or agreement we had stated that we would hastily discuss the terms of our service for 2022, which we did starting in August 2021.

“It was anticipated that we would be done by December 2021 so that it would go into effect in January 2022.

In fact, we can claim that we have been circling the negotiation table ever since and are still unable to reach a conclusion despite the resources we have invested in it.

The Union underlined their dissatisfaction with “the manner Administration has handled matters affecting the welfare of our members in the colleges of education throughout the years” in an earlier news release to announce their ultimatum to the government.

The Fair Wages and Salaries Commission (FWSC) unilaterally chose April 2023 as the start date for the placement of First Degree Holders of CENTSAG on position 17H on the SSSS. Other problems include the Ministry of Education’s excessive delay in responding to our request for payment of compensation.

By Friday, November 11, 2022, if their demands are not met, CETAG and CENTSAG say they will resume the indefinite strike actions they put on hold on January 24 and April 14, 2022 respectively.”