Teachers set to picket at Jubilee House over unpaid legacy arrears on Oct. 11
The Association of Aggrieved Teachers of Legacy Arrears have served notice to picket at the seat of government, Jubilee House, on October 11, 2024, to press home their demand for government to clear their outstanding arrears.
According to the group, their arrears from 2012 to 2016 remain unpaid.
Speaking to Daakyehene Ofosu Agyeman host of New York-based Adinkra Radio Morning Show, the National Secretary of the group, Abraham Acheampong stated that then President John Mahama started paying some or the arrears but could not clear all before leaving office in 2016.
He noted that, then opposition Leader, Nana Akufo-Addo promised to clear the legacy arrears for teachers, an assurance that pushed teachers to come out in their numbers to vote for the New Patriotic Party (NPP) in the 2016 elections.
Abraham Acheampong added that the group petitioned President Akufo-Addo in 2017, following which he paid the arrears from 2016, 2017, 2019, 2020, which were for teachers his government recruited.
“The one he promised and was captured in the NPP Manifesto in 2016, he has not paid. We feel pained by that. We want to remind him that the said legacy arrears have not been paid. That is why we want to picket at the Jubilee House so that he gets to know that it has not been paid. What he paid was salary arrears but the legacy arrears remain unpaid.
“We have petitioned the Ministries of Education, Ministry of Finance and the Ghana Education Service, if we don’t here from the government will embark on nationwide demonstration. With two months left for him to leave power, we are pleading with him to pay us our legacy arrears otherwise, we will hit the streets to demonstrate.”
Teacher unions in the country — the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT), and the Coalition of Concerned Teachers (CCT) — have all, on several occasions, threatened to lay down their tools over the failure of the government to pay the legacy arrears.
The arrears, which include over two years’ salary and promotion arrears, as well as allowances of some public school teachers, have sparked a series of demonstrations in the education sector.