Intervene in POTAG strike please, Nana Addo urges Prez Mills

Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo     The 2012 flagbearer of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, has appealed to President John Evans Atta-Mills to urgently end the strike of Polytechnic teachers using his high office. In a statement issued Tuesday, Nana Addo said he had acknowledged the President’s intervention in a similar strike action by the University Teachers Association of Ghana, (UTAG). UTAG members had been on a 3-week strike, demanding for the payment of outstanding allowances and when all negotiations with the Labour Commission failed to resolve the impasse, the President stepped in to get the teachers back to the classroom. The strike by the Polytechnic Teachers Association of Ghana (POTAG) preceded that of UTAG, however, it lingers. The NPP flagbearer says the direct consequence of the prolonged strike action is two-fold. "First, it means the concerns of the membership of Polytechnic Teachers Association of Ghana (POTAG) are yet to be addressed satisfactorily to cause their return to the classroom. Second, it means that the critical training of a significant class of our nation’s future, Polytechnic students, numbering tens of thousands, is being severely disturbed as they are forced to stay out of the classroom." Nana Addo also called on members of POTAG to cooperate as negotiations proceed for a quick resolution to this strike “which has brought the nation’s Polytechnic education to its knees.” “I have also advised the NPP members of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Education to impress upon the Committee to actively assist, as honest brokers, in the necessary process of bringing the POTAG strike to an end,” Nana Addo added in the statement. Story by Dorcas Efe Mensah/myjoyonline.com/Ghana