President of the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), Isaac Owusu, has disclosed that the intended crunch meeting with the government on Tuesday, July 12, over the payment of the Cost of Living Allowance (COLA), ended inconclusively.

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According to Mr Isaac Owusu, the meeting ended abruptly after two striking unions, the Ghana National Association of Teachers and the National Association of Graduate Teachers, stormed out of the meeting over a disagreement with the government's proposed terms for reconciliation. Mr Owusu, speaking to the media, noted that "what has happened today is very unfortunate.

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What we can say now is that our negotiations have come to an inconclusive end, and we are still on strike."Giving more insight on the turn of events, the President of the NAGRAT, Angel Carbonu, explained that the Government is demanding they end the strike before negotiation begins.In his view, the government is not ready to negotiate and find a solution to the demands of striking teachers.

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"They are indicating and asking us to call off our strike before negotiations begin," so what it means is that the government side is not ready to continue negotiations unless the teachers' unions call off their strike. They have held all organised labour hostage, and this is a betrayal of trust.

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The understanding we had is organised labour has been convened for us to find a solution to COLA, so since we are undesirable, we think before they even walk us out of the meeting, we are walking out of the meeting, "he explained.Meanwhile, the government's meeting with the aggrieved unions has been adjourned until further notice.

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Speaking to the media, Deputy Minister of Employment and Labour Relations, Bright Wereko-Brobbey, said the adjournment was due to the refusal of some labour unions to call off their strike before negotiations commence."We have had to adjourn the meeting because both parties; labour and government, think that we cannot do this while a party is on strike, so the agreement is that we are going off to talk to each other.

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They called off the strike, and we come again to meet," he noted This is the second time negotiations between the teacher unions and the government have ended inconclusively.Source: The Independent Ghana

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