The Bolgatanga Branch of the Technical University Teachers’ Association of Ghana (TUTAG) and the Technical University Senior Administrators’ Association of Ghana (TUSAAG) have announced the suspension of the withdrawal of their services.

This comes on the back of separate emergency meetings held by both associations on Thursday, 31 August 2023.

A statement issued by both associations, noted: “These meetings were held to deliberate on the consensus reached at the meeting held on August 29th, 2023, between TUTAG and TUSAAG on one hand and the University Management on the other with the Governing Council as the mediator.” 

It was unanimously agreed at both meetings that the strike action be suspended with effect from Friday, 1st September 2023,” the statement revealed.

The Bolgatanga Branch of TUTAG and TUSAAG withdrew their services.

The Bolgatanga Branches of TUTAG and TUSAAG had said they would continue to withdraw their services until their demands were met.

In a statement, the two associations accused the Vice Chancellor of seeking to vary portions of their “Conditions of Service (CoS) as approved by the Ministry of Finance (MoF) by hiding behind claims of ambiguity in the Technical Universities Act (2016) Act 922 as Amended”.

To this, the Bolgatanga Branch of TUTAG and TUSAAG said: “We out-rightly reject.”

According to the two associations, their strike was “based on misinterpretations of portions” of their CoS pertaining to the retirement benefit by the Vice Chancellor to their disadvantage”.

“We find Ghana Tertiary Education Commission’s (GTEC) decision to refer this matter to the Attorney General for interpretation as a time wasting tactic since GTEC’s submission at the NLC on the 23 rd of August 2023 indicated that the Attorney General’s interpretation was only to guide the commission regarding the “perceived” ambiguity and shall not be binding on any Technical University (TU). 

“So if the essence of the Attorney General’s so called interpretation of the Transitional provisions is only to serve as a guide for GTEC, then we consider this whole exercise as delay tactics,” the Bolgatanga branch of TUTAG and TUSAAG noted.

They, therefore, demanded the immediate payment of the “internal component of the Online Teaching Support Allowance (OTSA) and its accrued arrears for teaching staff that have not paid since January 2022”.