This is a press release from VICTIMS OF 3 MONTHS ARREARS PAY POLICY (V3MAPP) concerning their grienances
We want the government to understand that teaching in Ghana has not been palatable ever since leaders of this country decided to subject teachers to several harsh treatment from “tadpole stage to frog stage”. (ie from being a teacher trainee to being a teacher). These maltreatment are normally comes in the form of killer pills being prescribed for us in the form of policies. And one of such policies is the three months arrears payment policy.
Victims of this harsh policy have known no peace ever since it was introduced in 2013, ranging from affected teachers taking premature loans, others deferring their courses prematurely, premature deaths just to mention a few.
Several Attempts to address this problem have since not yielded any fruitful results. What annoys most of the affected teachers is that, the various unions who are supposed to defend, protect and promote the interest of its members, not for free but at a fee, is rather promoting, defending and shielding the interest of the government.
Government claim to have paid the arrears which ought to have been paid three years ago but most affected teachers have not received theirs. Initially when the “strike within strike” was called off in October 2014, agreement between government and teacher unions was that arrears will be paid in November, 2014. it was later changed to 2015 and from 2015 to 29th February, 2016, after another strike threat. This ‘game’ of telling teachers to exercise patience and change of dates for payment of arrears has been the only antidote given by the teacher unions.
As we speak now, those left unpaid are more than those paid. And even among those paid, most were underpaid. Others were validated and cleared to be paid in August, some in September but are still waiting at prayer camps for God’s intervention. Even those cleared in October and November have lost hope, how much more those yet to be validated. We believe that all these mess were able to come into being due to the negligence of our teacher unions. As a result, almost 79% of teachers have lost confidence and trust in them. Having realized that, the teacher unions have decided to use pendrives, pens and other irrelevant items to calm us so that they can sleep at their offices.
As unsatisfied as we are by the turn of events, we are by this press release giving GNAT, NAGRAT, CCT executives 7 days ultimatum to resign, else we will gather all their items and burn it at the full glare of the public and exit the unions they forcibly added us to. We are also by this release asking President Mahama led administration to pay us before exiting office on the 7th January, 2017.
What we will do next will be determined by how government and the teacher unions attend to our issue.
Source: V3MAPP
