GTEC justifies July salary freeze for striking CETAG members

The Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC) has defended its decision to direct the Controller and Accountants General to freeze the July salaries of members of the Colleges of Education Teachers Association of Ghana (CETAG).

CETAG at a news conference in Kumasi on Monday, July 22 warned it will 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 across all 46 colleges of Education in the country have been on strike since June 14 over the government’s refusal to implement their arbitral award and conditions of service forcing students of the various schools to leave the campuses.

GTEC, subsequently in a statement directed the Controller and Accountant General’s Department to withhold the July 2024 salaries of all teaching staff of CETAG excluding the College Principals in response to the ongoing strike by CETAG members which began in June this year.

Speaking to Citi News, the Director General of GTEC Prof Ahmed Jinapor Abdulai explained that the salary freeze is a logical consequence of CETAG’s failure to validate their presence at work.

Prof. Abdulai emphasised that payment requires validation, which is contingent upon being present at the workplace.

Prof Abdulai clarified that all staff and faculty will be migrated onto the scheme of service of their affiliate universities, resolving the issue of discrimination in migration.

He appealed to the striking teachers to return to the classrooms as the government is working to implement all the demands of CETAG.

“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.”

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