The Minister for Defence, Dominic Nitiwul, has pleaded with the on-strike workers’ unions and others intended to follow suit to exercise patience with the government as it negotiates with the International Monetary Fund for a bailout.
He believes that had the government had the requisite means to meet their demands, they would not have been allowed to embark on their strike.
Speaking on Joy News, Dominic Nitiwul, called for cool heads on parts of the leadership of the teacher unions on strike and others threatening the same move.
“This idea of I’m going to go on strike, I’m going to do this if the government has all the means they will give it to you. This government has shown very good faith to everybody that if they have the means they will do it.
“They’ve never disrespected workers, they’ve never shouted at workers, and they’ve negotiated with workers in good faith. I plead with them that they should give the government the opportunity to negotiate with them in good faith.”
Highlighting the situation, Dominic Nitiwul said the recent agitations, especially now that the country is headed to the IMF puts Ghana in a tight spot.
“Can you imagine you’re leading an IMF team and workers are asking for between 6 to 8 billion extra income or extra expenditure on the budget? It makes your work very very difficult. I just plead that yes, things are difficult, we all accept.
“It’s not the fault of the worker that maybe if he was earning 3000 Ghana cedis yesterday that 3000 may buy less things. But like I said let’s plead with everybody to give government the opportunity to negotiate very well with them.
“But I really really worry that whatever we do we should look at our kids and ensure that we don’t leave a country where tomorrow those kids will find Ghana a different place. We’ve managed ourselves very well up till now and we’ll continue to do whatever we have to do to keep this country very safe, extremely very safe,” the minister added.
Strike Actions
All the Teacher Unions in the pre-tertiary educational sector on Monday July 4, 2022, embarked on an indefinite strike demanding a 20% Cost of Living Allowance (COLA) from the government, citing the high rate of inflation on fuel and food.
Again, other workers’ unions also demanding COLA have threatened to emulate the teacher unions in the coming days should government fail to meet their demands.
