The University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG), has threatened to embark on another strike if government fails to pay up their Book and Research allowance by Friday [October 23].
This according to them, is because several assurances given by government to pay the allowances have not yielded any positive results.
Speaking on Eyewitness News, President of UTAG, Dr. Samuel Ofori Bekoe said three weeks after they suspended their strike, government has still not paid their allowances.
“The issue is that, by Friday if we don’t receive the Book and Research allowance, earliest next week, we are going to call for an emergency national committee meeting and we are going to review our actions.”
Dr. Bekoe said “the last time we were suspending our strike, we gave the government up to 30th September for the them to pay the allowances. Three clear weeks gone beyond the deadline since we suspended the strike action for government to pay, and they have not paid up till now.”
The UTAG president added that correspondence to the sector ministry to have their monies paid have not been successful hence their resolve to embark on another strike.
UTAG suspended its one-week old strike on August 13, following assurances from government that the allowances were going to be paid.
GH$15.9 million released so far
But speaking on Eyewitness News, the Public Relations Officer of the Ministry of Education, Francis Gbadago, said the ministry is working hard to fast track the process.
“Usually the payment is done in batches. So far, the Ministry of Finance has worked on three batches. An amount of GH¢15.9 million has been credited to the account of the Ministry of Education and within the shortest possible time, the national Council for Tertiary Education should be able to write the institutional cheque to these 11 institutions that have fallen within the first batch for them to collect their monies.”
Mr. Gbadago indicated that, an officer from the National Council for Tertiary Education, had visited the Ministry for the cheque for further disbursement to the various institutions in the first batch.
“We do understand that, it shouldn’t take them more than a day to write the institutional cheque for the first batches to come for their monies,” he added.
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(Selorm) | 
(Nana Kwesi)