The President of the University of Ghana chapter of the University Teachers Association of Ghana, UTAG, Prof Ransford Gyampo has slammed the government’s posture following organised labour’s insistence to carry out its strike action from Thursday, October 10.
The government on Monday, October 7, expressed surprise at labour’s decision to embark on its anti-galamsey strike in a statement signed by the Information Minister, Fatimatu Abubakar.
In the view of the government, at the President’s high-level meeting with organised labour last week, it put forward a number of steps to meet their demands and thus found their position now to be surprising.
But speaking on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show on Tuesday, Prof. Ransford Gyampo rather expressed surprise at the government’s reaction.
He said organised labour was not automatically going to accept the position of the government hook line and sinker merely because it agreed to meet with the President.
He noted that as long as organised labour is dissatisfied with the government’s response to the national emergency, going on strike is in order.
“I am surprised that Fatima says she’s surprised at the response of labour. We didn’t ask them to come and meet the President and swallow hook line and sinker whatever the President was solving. They went to listen and came back to us and we said no way. If the government is serious a simple temporary moratorium on mining so we all sit to dialogue will be the way to go.
But they’re talking about when Parliament reconvenes, and we are going to collaborate with labour to fight galamsey, how? We’re going to ask that special courts be set up, meanwhile, people are dying.
Prof Gyampo said they expected the government to take immediate action to suspend small-scale mining activities before any focus on long-term measures.
“People are dying today, so why won’t look at the current issues so that we look at the other long-term interventions” he quizzed.
ALSO READ: