“I don’t know (when the strike will end), you can ask those who are negotiating on behalf of government,” these are the words of Prof Ransford Gyampo, Secretary of the University Teachers Association of Ghana, UTAG.
The political science lecturer at the University of Ghana, UG, insists that to the extent that their demands made since 2012 remain unmet, UTAG was ready to continue with its industrial action.
“If we don’t do it now, like I said, we have been negotiating from 2012 till now, nothing is coming up and so now we have moved beyond negotiations, (but) they are calling meetings upon meetings.
“Yes, the executives are attending but I think that, just as I said, we do not eat meetings, we don’t eat negotiations. We are looking for the right thing to be done, it is not about plenty talk. It is either they do it and we go back to the classroom or…” Gyampo said.
He reiterated a call on the president to intervene in the impasse between UTAG and the National Labour Commission, stating that he will likely have something better to tell UTAG.
“I have made a personal appeal to the president himself that the buck stops with him and so if anything at all, he should intervene because I believe that if he intervenes, he would have something better to tell us,” he stressed.
UTAG has defied an NLC order to return to their posts and also to the negotiating table despite a court order also asking them to call off the strike which started weeks ago.
The action has forced UG and the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology to postpone the end-of-semester exams.
Prof Gyampo was speaking on the August 12 edition of Good Evening Ghana programme which aired on Metro TV.
