Chairman of the Senior Staff Association of Universities of Ghana (SSA-UoG) University of Ghana Branch, Mr. Francis Sosu has vehemently called on government to address their concerns with the threat of the continuation of their indefinite strike.
Following the press statement released by the SSA-UoG on the 17th of January 2024, the association declared an indefinite strike action on public universities’ campuses nationwide, in order to push their request to government.
In an interview, Mr. Sosu lamented on the plight of the association’s members.
“Our overtime has been taken from us with the reason that Senior staff are not entitled to overtime. Our Tier-2 pension money (5%) hass been deducted from our salary from March to December last year (2023) and has still not been paid. Our farm managers have not received the money to invest and get our interests from it.”
In counselling the government to address their issues with haste, Mr. Sosu cited other similar occasions where their concerns were left unaddressed over a delayed period of time.
“So the government is hereby informed that if they do not rescind their decision to allow Senior Staff receive their overtime and pay our Tier-2 to our farm mangers for investment we will be on strike indefinitely.”
“Last year for instance, it was until we complained that the government did some simple interest calculation and gave us the monies. This is a signal/warning to the government until our demands are met, these are the monies we use to cater for ourselves during our pension stay at home.”
Mr. Francis however clarified that the main aim of the action was not to punish students but was a necessity to have government respond to their requests duely.
“It is not our aim to punish any students; I have two biological students who are offering masters and undergraduate courses here who will be affected but we are just asking the government to do the needful, and that’s all we are asking.”
He lastly stated that the government together with the National Labour Commission were a major cause for the strike since they did not respond to their previous calls for action.
“We informed the labour commission two weeks ago but that has proved futile since they have not responded to us, which means they are literally calling us to take this action and we are not relenting until our demands are met.”
–
Story by: Atiah Eunice Ayinbota | univers.ug.edu.gh
