Managing Director of Intercity STC, Nana Akomea has slammed the Akufo-Addo administration for ignoring the warnings of the University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG) before they embarking on their strike action.
The University lecturers have laid down their tools and stopped any teaching-related services in protest against the government’s inability to resolve their worsening conditions of service.
The Association is demanding a little over $2,000 as an entry-level salary for lecturers.
Speaking on Peace FM’s morning show ‘Kokrokoo’, Nana Akomea bemoaned the culture where not just the Akufo-Addo government but successive governments pay unserious attention to the grievances of those in the teaching and health fields until they take an industrial action to show their displeasure.
He believed UTAG wouldn’t have reached a decision to go on strike if the government had been proactive towards them.
“One thing that saddens me is that government after government over the period wait for labour issues to turn into strike before we go to the negotiation table. All the major strikes, whether nurses, whether doctors, whether teachers, University and so forth; they don’t suddenly get up to embark on strike but rather send warnings…They give a notice,” he said.
Meanwhile, there are ongoing negotiations between the government and UTAG executives to bring the strike to an end.
To Nana Akomea, it is a good thing that the government is holding talks with UTAG saying, for the teachers to return to work, ”it’s a matter of engaging them, show them empathy, be sincere and show them what the government can afford”.
