Students of the C.K. Tedam University of Technology and Applied Sciences (CKT-UTAS), a premier public university at Navrongo in the Upper East Region are appealing to the government to immediately resolve the salary issue of the workers to enable them to return to work.
Aside the nationwide strike by senior staff of public universities, Workers’ Union of CKT-UTAS made up of UTAG, TEWU, GAUA and SSA-UoG declared an indefinite strike on 2nd August 2021 to protest against the government’s plan to migrate them to a payroll which they say will recognize them as “new staffs”.
According to the workers, the intention of the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC) to migrate their salary payment onto the Controller and Accountant General Department’s payroll system will see them losing their basic salaries and allowance ranging from 5% to 59% due to placement on lower salary scales.
The impact of the strike according to the Students’ Representative Council (SRC) of the university has affected academic activities. The SRC President of the CKT-UTAS, Ebenezer Opoku-Mensah in a release to A1 NEWS said all academic activities at the university have come to a halt due to the government’s failure to heed to concerns of the workers there.
Mr. Opoku-Mensah said the strike of the workers which coupled with the devastating effect of the COVID-19 on academic activities is putting students in psychological trauma.
The SRC of the university said the decision by the GTEC is unwarranted and that the decision of the workers to strike is legitimate.
“We, the SRC admits the fact that the university is new but the staffs are not as GTEC wants to treat them. They have been working for years under the UDS payment system and they should not be treated as such by the GTEC”, the statement signed by Mr. Opoku-Mensah stated.
The SRC is therefore called on the government and the appropriate authorities involved, to “come to the aid of the CKT-UTAS staff and the students as a whole by settling their differences”.
Source: A1Radioonline.com.101.1Mhz|Joshua Asaah
