NAGRAT's Account Frozen

The Vanguard’s authoritative sources at the Controller and Accountant General’s Department, confirms that, government has issued a directive for striking teachers salaries to be withheld while government continues negotiations with their parent associations.

Investigations at the Department and the Ministry of Finance and economic Planning revealed that those to be severely affected by the directive are members of the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT), who have for the past 7 weeks or so, been on sit down strike demanding immediate salaries augmentation, and better conditions of service, among others.

Since embarking on the strike action, several prominent institutions and important personalities including President John Agyekum Kufuor, have passionately appealed to the leadership and members of NAGRAT to soften their stance and return to the classroom for negotiations to begin to find a lasting solution to the plight of all teachers in the country.

However, NAGRAT has remained adamant refusing to go to work and stressing that, even if salaries of graduate teachers are increased by 100%, they will not go back to the classroom.

To make matters worse, the National President of NAGRAT, Mr. Kwami Alorvi, has gone out of his way to make various remarks about government further entrenching its position concerning NAGRAT’s strike action. “Senior House Fathers and Masters were equally advised to retire from their regular duties and leave the students to be on their own “for us to see the number of pregnancy cases that would be recorded within the striking period.” This would be a lesson to the government”. Kwami Alorvi revealed recently.

Not even an olive branch reached out to NAGRAT by the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) to join forces with them, to negotiate with government for better salaries and working conditions for teachers, cold soften the hearts of the leadership of NAGRAT to rescind its decision not go back to the classroom.

According to GNAT, it was ever prepared to form a joint negotiating team with NAGRAT, by virtue of its (GNAT) lawful Bargaining Power, to negotiate with government with the mission of persuading government to ensure that teachers in the country are motivated enough by way of sufficient salaries and better working conditions.

Meanwhile information reaching The Vanguard indicates that the NAGRAT strike action may go beyond the normal industrial actions. According to sources within the Labour Front, some politicians may be behind the strike actions and are allegedly making frantic efforts to rope the students’ front into the industrial unrest in order to deepen the already seemingly insurmountable burden on government perhaps, to create disaffection for the Kufuor administration.

The faceless politicians, according to the sources, are said to be planning series of press conferences by using the students’ front, which shall be proceeded with students’ demonstrations against government.

“The scheme is to paint a horror picture about the Kufuor government to make it an insensitive administration” said an informant of the The Vanguard who confirmed a secret meeting between the said politicians and some leading members of the students front in Accra and Kumasi, to be precise.