NAGRAT Refutes GNAT's Claims

By Stephen Kwabena Effah
Wednesday, 25 October 2006 (Page 3)

The National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT) says it never received an invitation by the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) to join in the current negotiations of new salaries for teachers.

It said the only invitation from GNAT dated August 3, asked the NAGRAT to send its proposals to be included in a proposal GNAT had drafted.

The letter, the association said, also requested the NAGRAT to nominate two of its members to serve on a committee tasked to draft the GNAT proposal and therefore contended that, the letter from GNAT had nothing to do with salary negotiations.

Speaking at a press conference in Accra yesterday, the president of the NAGRAT, Kwami Alorvi, said however that if even GNAT had extended any such invitation to NAGRAT to join it at the salary negotiations, it would have declined it.

The conference was held at the National Secretariat of NAGRAT at Kokomlemle, Accra, to clarify issues related to the current strike and to respond to certain allegations leveled against the association.

"This is because GNAT lacks the capacity to extend such invitation to NAGRAT simply because it is not our employer. GNAT is only a trade union just as NAGRAT. It is the employer that has the duty to invite its employee associations to negotiate with it," he explained.

Mr. Alorvi, whose address was interrupted frequently with loud applause, and shouts from the graduate teachers present, stated emphatically that no meeting had been held between NAGRAT and the government since they started the strike 46 days ago.

He said the only letters NAGRAT received were from the Ghana Employers Association and the Ghana Conference of Religions for Peace requesting to know NAGRAT’s grievances.

He therefore challenged government to produce any evidence of such meetings adding, "the nation needs to be told whether the meetings were convened by letter, phone calls or through messages carried by errand boys."

He said what NAGRAT had officially heard from the sector minister was that "government does not recognise it and so it should join GNAT before government could talk to it."

On the numerous appeals to return to the classroom, the NAGRAT president said: "We want to point out that NAGRAT, has received no such appeals from any quarters other than the Ghana Education Service."

He said NAGRAT, cannot dispute the fact that it has read about such purported appeals in newspapers and heard them on air. But he added, such appeals through the media were to them confirmation of how teachers were marginalised and disregarded by both the government and the public.

He rejected the contention by some people that the strike had entered its seventh week and consequently made its mark, it should be called off.

NAGRAT, he said, respects all those who wish to intervene and mediate but "we are sorry to say that we will prefer them maintaining the dignity we accord them rather than meddling in this case only to be eventually disappointed by the government."

The NAGRAT president also denied allegations that he was once an NDC Constituency chairman in the Volta Region, and had once contested and lost the GNAT leadership position.

When contacted, the General Secretary of GNAT, Mrs. Irene Duncan-Adanusah, said GNAT invited the NAGRAT to join in the drafting of the proposal but NAGRAT did not turn up.

"Before you go for the negotiations, you have to know the content of the proposal," she said.