Features
UTAG Strike: A Student’s Perspective
University Teachers Association of Ghana, (UTAG), embarked on an industrial action on Monday, August 2, 2021, to demand better conditions of service. This action had had a heavy impact on academic activities in the various universities, bringing teaching and learning to a standstill.
There had been threats by the management of some universities to close down if the strike exceeded two weeks. In a conscious effort to resolve this issue, stakeholders had engaged UTAG at several meetings which initially proved futile.
According to UTAG president, Professor Charles Marfo, the agreement with government regarding the Single Spine Salary Structure in 2012 meant that an entry-level lecturer would receive the Ghana Cedi equivalent of $2,084 but successive governments had been paying lecturers lesser than that. He stated that they were not looking for an increment of their salaries but they only “want to be given what they believe is fair.”
Before the strike, UTAG had already hinted and threatened the government to embark on an industrial action if it did not take immediate steps to curb the worsening conditions of service of UTAG members.
True to their words, the association embarked on industrial action by withdrawing teaching, which included the conduct of examinations, marking of examination scripts, and other related matters.
But, thankfully, the strike which started on Monday, August 2, 2021, ended on August 18, 2021. Nonetheless it must be stated that amidst the fight for better conditions, students were at the receiving end of the back and forth between government and the lecturers.
As a third year student at the Ghana Institute of Journalism (GIJ), I have a year more to complete school and having been dealt with enough academic stress throughout the outbreak of Coronavirus-19 disease last year, the strike was an unfortunate ordeal students had to go through.
Last year, students stayed home for nine months, managing to study online and struggling to complete the semester. This year, we had to accumulate a 13-week lecture in six to nine weeks in order to cover the time lost.
We were recovering from “academic infirmity” until the sudden news of our lecturers embarking on a strike. This, indeed, left us contemplating on what to do with the rest of the semester.
Final year students were no exemption. It was unfortunate that in their last year of completing school, they were left stranded because lectures and the conduct of examinations had been suspended.
Per the academic calendar, we had barely two weeks to start examinations only to be met with the suspension of academic activities until the government took action.
Time was passing quickly and had the negations remained in a stalemate, we would have required more time to complete our academic work.
After what appeared to be a long silence on the part of government on the strike, steps were eventually put in place for the resumption of lectures.
Students had paid huge sums of money as ‘facility user fees’ after spending two-thirds of the semester on online classes, therefore, we could not have afforded to stay home any longer.
Professor Charles Marfo had said that the members of UTAG were “extremely unhappy about the government’s treatment, and although they were not enthused to stay home, they believed that they needed to fight for better conditions of service for themselves.”
The inconvenience of the about two-week-long strike cannot be overemphasised. I am somehow relieved that the government and UTAG came up with solutions which prompted the leadership of UTAG to call off the strike.
Education is not a break and pause affair; it is a continuous journey. And as the President rightfully said, “we should not be spectators but citizens”. Therefore, I wish to urge the government to prevent the concerns of UTAG and other labour organisations from degenerating into strikes which only create different forms of inconveniences to citizens.
Agitations on the labour front affect the nation in the long run and we must take pragmatic steps in for resolving all outstanding and future concerns of workers promptly.
By Jacklin Addobea Addo
Features
Tears of Ghanaman, home and abroad
The typical native of Sikaman is by nature a hospitable creature, a social animal with a big heart, a soul full of the milk of earthly goodness, and a spirit too loving for its own comfort.
Ghanaman hosts a foreign pal and he spends a fortune to make him very happy and comfortable-good food, clean booze, excellent accommodation and a woman for the night.
Sometimes the pal leaves without saying a “thank you but Ghanaman is not offended. He’d host another idiot even more splendidly. His nature is warm, his spirit benevolent. That is the typical Ghanaian and no wonder that many African-Americans say, “If you haven’t visited Ghana. Then you’ve not come to Africa.
You can even enter the country without a passport and a visa and you’ll be welcomed with a pot of palm wine.
If Ghanaman wants to go abroad, especially to an European country or the United States, it is often after an ordeal.
He has to doze in a queue at dawn at the embassy for days and if he is lucky to get through to being interviewed, he is confronted by someone who claims he or she has the power of discerning truth from lie.
In short Ghanaman must undergo a lie-detector test and has to answer questions that are either nonsensical or have no relevance to the trip at hand. When Joseph Kwame Korkorti wanted a visa to an European country, the attache studied Korkorti’s nose for a while and pronounced judgment.
“The way I see you, you won’t return to Ghana if I allow you to go. Korkorti nearly dislocated her jaw; Kwasiasem akwaakwa. In any case what had Korkorti’s nose got to do with the trip?
If Ghanaman, after several attempts, manages to get the visa and lands in the whiteman’s land, he is seen as another monkey uptown, a new arrival of a degenerate ape coming to invade civilized society. He is sneered at, mocked at and avoided like a plague. Some landlords abroad will not hire their rooms to blacks because they feel their presence in itself is bad business.
When a Sikaman publisher landed overseas and was riding in a public bus, an urchin who had the impudence and notoriety of a dead cockroach told his colleagues he was sure the black man had a tail which he was hiding in his pair of trousers. He didn’t end there. He said he was in fact going to pull out the tail for everyone to see.
True to his word he went and put his hand into the backside of the bewildered publisher, intent on grabbing his imaginary tail and pulling it out. It took a lot of patience on the part of the publisher to avert murder. He practically pinned the white miscreant on the floor by the neck and only let go when others intervene. Next time too…
The way we treat our foreign guests in comparison with the way they treat us is polar contrasting-two disparate extremes, one totally incomparable to the other. They hound us for immigration papers, deport us for overstaying and skinheads either target homes to perpetrate mayhem or attack black immigrants to gratify their racial madness
When these same people come here we accept them even more hospitably than our own kin. They enter without visas, overstay, impregnate our women and run away.
About half of foreigners in this country do not have valid resident permits and was not a bother until recently when fire was put under the buttocks of the Immigration Service
In fact, until recently I never knew Sikaman had an Immigration Service. The problem is that although their staff look resplendent in their green outfit, you never really see them anywhere. You’d think they are hidden from the public eye.
The first time I saw a group of them walking somewhere, I nearly mistook them for some sixth-form going to the library. Their ladies are pretty though.
So after all, Sikaman has an Immigration Service which I hear is now alert 24 hours a day tracking down illegal aliens and making sure they bound the exit via Kotoka International. A pat on their shoulder.
I am glad the Interior Ministry has also realised that the country has been too slack about who goes out or comes into Sikaman.
Now the Ministry has warned foreigners not to take the country’s commitment to its obligations under the various conditions as a sign of weakness or a source for the abuse of her hospitality.
“Ghana will not tolerate any such abuse,” Nii Okaija Adamafio, the Interior Minister said, baring his teeth and twitching his little moustache. He was inaugurating the Ghana Refugee and Immigration Service Boards.
He said some foreigners come in as tourists, investors, consultants, skilled workers or refugees. Others come as ‘charlatans, adventurers or plain criminals. “
Yes, there are many criminals among them. Our courts have tried a good number of them for fraud and misconduct.
It is time we welcome only those who would come and invest or tour and go back peacefully and not those whose criminal intentions are well-hidden but get exposed in due course of time.
This article was first published on Saturday March 14, 1998
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Features
Decisions have consequences
In this world, it is always important to recognise that every action or decision taken, has consequences.
It can result in something good or bad, depending on the quality of the decision, that is, the factors that were taken into account in the decision making.
The problem with a bad decision is that, in some instances, there is no opportunity to correct the result even though you have regretted the decision, which resulted in the unpleasant outcome.
This is what a friend of mine refers to as having regretted an unregretable regret. After church last Sunday, I was watching a programme on TV and a young lady was sharing with the host, how a bad decision she took, had affected her life immensely and adversely.
She narrated how she met a Caucasian and she got married to him. The white man arranged for her to join him after the marriage and processes were initiated for her to join her husband in UK. It took a while for the requisite documentation to be procured and during this period, she took a decision that has haunted her till date.
According to her narration, she met a man, a Ghanaian, who she started dating, even though she was a married woman.
After a while her documents were ready and so she left to join her husband abroad without breaking off the unholy relationship with the man from Ghana.
After she got to UK, this man from Ghana, kept pressuring her to leave the white man and return to him in Ghana. The white man at some point became a bit suspicious and asked about who she has been talking on the phone with for long spells, and she lied to him that it was her cousin.
Then comes the shocker. After the man from Ghana had sweet talked her continuously for a while, she decided to leave her husband and return to Ghana after only three weeks abroad.
She said, she asked the guy to swear to her that he would take care of both her and her mother and the guy swore to take good care of her and her mother as well as rent a 3-bedroom flat for her. She then took the decision to leave her husband and return to Ghana.
She told her mum that she was returning to Ghana to marry the guy in Ghana. According to her, her mother vigorously disagreed with her decision and wept.
She further added that her mum told her brother and they told her that they were going to tell her husband about her intentions.
According to her, she threatened that if they called her husband to inform him, then she would commit suicide, an idea given to her by the boyfriend in Ghana.
Her mum and brother afraid of what she might do, agreed not to tell her husband. She then told her husband that she was returning to Ghana to attend her Grandmother’s funeral.
The husband could not understand why she wanted to go back to Ghana after only three weeks stay so she had to lie that in their tradition, grandchildren are required to be present when the grandmother dies and is to be buried.
She returned to Ghana; the flat turns into a chamber and hall accommodation, the promise to take care of her mother does not materialise and generally she ends up furnishing the accommodation herself. All the promises given her by her boyfriend, turned out to be just mere words.
A phone the husband gave her, she left behind in UK out of guilty conscience knowing she was never coming back to UK.
Through that phone and social media, the husband found out about his boyfriend and that was the end of her marriage.
Meanwhile, things have gone awry here in Ghana and she had regretted and at a point in her narration, was trying desperately to hold back tears. Decisions indeed have consequences.
NB: ‘CHANGE KOTOKA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT TO KOFI BAAKO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT’
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