Concerned Teachers give 72-hour ultimatum to GNAT leadership to resign

The Coalition of Concerned Teachers in the Western Region, has given a 72- hour ultimatum to the leadership of Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) to resign or face court action to remove them from office.

The call for resignation comes amidst persistent failure on the part of the leadership of GNAT to adequately address the concerns and plight of teachers.

Mr. Patrick Dzebu, Chairman of the Coalition, told a press conference in Takoradi that, the GNAT has grossly failed to meet the demands of teachers in areas such as welfare, conditions of service, social status of teachers and financial accountability.

He said: “With reference to the above, we are calling on the leadership of GNAT to peacefully resign within 72 hours or face court action”.

Mr. Dzebu alleged that the leadership of GNAT were only using money paid by teachers as dues to enrich themselves.

He noted, “Our dues which stands at GH¢11.50p is even more than our mutual fund contributions which is our retirement benefits” adding, how can one pay such huge amount as dues without any proper accounting mechanism on how the monies are being utilized”.

“GNAT accumulate more money in a year as contribution from teachers and can even lend to government”, he added.

The coalition was also disappointed that the welfare and social status scheme of teachers were not functioning, saying, “when one teacher developed a-whole-in-heart problem, we the teachers had to be levied GH¢3 each to cater for his medical expenses”.

Mr. Dzebu said migrating a Certificate ‘A’ teacher to the diploma status is also one of the issues raised by the coalition noting how teachers had to pay over GH¢6000 without any support system from the social status of Teachers module.

The coalition noted that teachers had been taken for granted for a long time hence “the time to fight the cause of teachers is now or never”.

Source: GNA