The ongoing strike by members of the Teachers and Educational Workers Union (TEWU-GH), at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) is expected to be suspended on Monday.
The decision follows assurances from the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC) that the Union’s concerns will be addressed within two weeks.
TEWU-GH has been protesting what it describes as a lack of proper representation on the KNUST Governing Council.
National Chairman of TEWU-GH, Abdul Sulemana, expressed confidence that issues will be addressed.
“We are using this opportunity to plead with our members to have patience so that the issues can be dealt with and we believe about two weeks’ time, these issues will be put to rest,” he said.
According to him, “a lot of revelations have come out from the meeting so we want to ask our members that they should have patience and we are certainly confident that these issues will be dealt with.”
The Local Chairman of TEWU-GH at KNUST, Mr Charles Arthur, assured GTEC of suspending the strike next week.
“The Labour Act 651, section 161 clearly states that there is a cooling off that if the parties are in negotiation you have to suspend. So, we want to assure Director of GTEC and our National Chairman that the strike will be suspended on Monday after meeting with our members,” Mr Arthur said.
Meanwhile, the Director-General of GTEC, Dr. Abdulai Jinapor, says the Commission has no intention of influencing representation on any university’s Governing Council.
“We are going to work with TEWU-GH and TEWU TUC to resolve the problem, but for the avoidance of doubt, GTEC does not have interest in this issue. We don’t support TEWU TUC and we don’t support TEWU-GH we support the interest of the constituents and that group within must be the right person representing them, so we are going to work with them and TEWU TUC,” Dr Jinapor explained.
