TEWU to resist Govt decision to join HIPC

The Teachers and Educational Workers Union (TEWU) of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), on Friday vowed it will resist government's decision to accept the Highly Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative.

Mr Dan Ayim Antwi, General Secretary of TEWU, was reacting to the announcement of Ghana's acceptance of HIPC by the Minister of Finance, Mr Yaw Osafo-Maafo, when he presented the government's 2001 budget to Parliament on Friday.

Mr Antwi warned that TEWU would organise mass protests through out the country to ensure that the government's decision to accept HIPC is reversed.

"How can we accept to be a highly poor and indebted country, when countries that are even poorer than us are not part of that initiative?" he asked.

Mr Antwi was speaking at a three-day workshop, organised by TEWU for its women's wings, in the Central and Western regions, at Takoradi.

It was sponsored by Education International (EI) and the Federation of Netherlands Trades Union (FNU). The workshop took participants through public speaking, gender analysis, ILO conventions on women and leadership skills among other things.

In a resolution TEWU called on the Ghana Education Service (GES) to expedite action on grievances submitted to it by the non-teaching staff of educational institutions in September, last year. It also called on Parliament to enact a law to regulate the hiring of house-helps.