The General Secretary of the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), Thomas Tanko Musah, has said the government should authorise the Controller and Accountant-General’s Department to pay teachers who had been promoted their appropriate salaries.
According to him, the teacher unions were given assurances during negotiations that promoted teachers would not be required to submit add itional documents before their salary adjustments were effected.
Speaking on TV3’s Hot Issues on Sunday, October 4, he said that assurance has since not been implemented.
He argued that once government had authorised the payment of the appropriate salaries, it had a responsibility to ensure that the funds were released to the affected teachers.
“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,” Tanko Musah stated.
“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 said.
He stressed that teachers are employees of the government and not the Controller and Accountant-General’s Department, which only handles the payment of their salaries on behalf of the state.
“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 noted.
He maintained that the unions’ dispute was therefore with the government over the implementation of the agreed salary payments to newly promoted teachers, rather than with the Controller and Accountant-General.
“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 said.
Pre-tertiary teacher unions in Ghana—including GNAT, the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT), and PRETAG declared a nationwide strike from Friday, September 25, 2026
Their concerns include; failure to automatically place promoted teachers on their correct salary levels, delays in processing salary arrears and adjustments for affected teachers and non-implementation of the 20% Deprived Area Allowance and expired conditions of service/collective agreements.
Education Minister Haruna Iddrisu and Finance Minister Dr. Cassiel Ato Forson have urged the unions to call off the industrial action, committing to resolve promotion allowances and schedule further negotiations with the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission (FWSC).
However, the unions remain adamant, instructing members to stay off until new salaries and arrears have been paid.
