The General Secretary of the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), Thomas Tanko Musah, says teachers’ unions are not seeking to cause harm by continuing their nationwide strike.
He said the industrial action followed the government’s failure to implement an agreement under which newly promoted teachers were expected to receive their appropriate salaries without submitting additional documentation.
The pre-tertiary teacher unions, including GNAT, the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT) and PRETAG, began the strike on Friday, September 25, 2026.
Their demands include the automatic placement of promoted teachers on the correct salary levels, the payment of outstanding salary arrears and adjustments, the implementation of the 20% Deprived Area Allowance, and action on expired conditions of service and collective agreements.
Speaking on TV3’s Hot Issues on Sunday, October 4, 2026, Musah said negotiations had produced a clear understanding that teachers would not have to provide further documents before their salaries were processed.
“We don’t mean harm. We went for a meeting to negotiate, they themselves read the text out that nobody should submit any document and Controller was instructed to go and pay the thing automatically to teachers and you have not done it, is it our making?” he stated.
Musah argued that teachers were employed by the government, rather than by the Controller and Accountant-General’s Department, which administers the payment of their salaries.
“We didn’t work for Controller, we work for Government but government decided that the salaries that we will take should go through Controller,” he said.
He maintained that the government remained responsible for ensuring teachers received the money owed to them after they had fulfilled their duties.
According to Musah, if the government had made the funds available and directed the Controller and Accountant-General’s Department to distribute them, it was the government’s responsibility to ensure that instruction was carried out.
“If somebody has worked and the person is going to Controller to go and take his salary and the person who is supposed to pay my salary is telling me that he will not give it to me, then my employer is under obligation and he owes me the duty of care to order that person, authorize and instruct him that look the money I gave you to give to my employees, give it to them,” he stated.
He said the dispute was therefore with the government as the unions’ employer, rather than with the department responsible for processing salaries.
“We did not work for Controller and if there is anything, we have an issue with our employer (Government) and that is where we are now,” he remarked.
Education Minister Haruna Iddrisu and Finance Minister Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson have called on the unions to end the strike. They have pledged to address promotion-related allowances and arrange further discussions with the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission (FWSC).
The unions, however, have told members to remain off work until the revised salaries and arrears have been paid.
