Teacher union groups GNAT, NAGRAT, CCT-GH and TEWU declared a strike action on Monday, 4th July, 2022.
The strike is supposed to mount pressure on the Government to pay them COLA- “Cost of Living Allowance”.
Their demand is premised on the generally high cost of living in Ghana which doesn’t commensurate with the poor salaries of workers.
Immediately after the Teacher Unions declared the strike action, UTAG, that is, the University Teachers Association of Ghana, also released a press statement issuing a strong warning to the Government stating that, “UTAG would not tolerate any IMF conditionality that negatively affects the existing agreements between Government and UTAG to improve the Conditions of Service of our members”.
Last Friday, 1st July, 2022, The President, Nana Akufo-Addo, directed the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta, to start ‘formal engagement’ with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
This was contained in a letter dated July 1, 2022 and signed by the Information Minister, Oppong Nkrumah. The IMF operations are expected to kick-start from next year, January, 2023.
The IMF normally comes with ‘strong conditionalities as some of these conditionalities tend not to favour the Ghanaian worker.
Some of these conditionalities could include embargo on employment, freeze in salary increment, scrapping off allowances of workers, among others.
Considering the high cost of living in Ghana coupled with e-levy and other bad policies, the Ghanaian worker is already suffering. If the IMF takes over the economy and initiates some of these conditionalities, the Ghanaian worker will be worse off.
The decision to go to the IMF has sent a lot fear and uncertainty to Ghanaian workers.
Therefore, many workers and Labour Unions are likely to undertake industrial actions such as Strike actions, Demonstrations, Press Statements, etc to “force” the Government to pay them their due salaries and allowances before the IMF “freezes” these monies from January next year when it takes over the economy.
Source: Mybrytnewsroom.com/Kwabena Nyarko Abronoma
