Wednesday, September 03, 2014

UTAG Strike to End

According to today's Daily Graphic the government and UTAG reached an agreement yesterday and the strike will end this week. The government has agreed to pay us our Book and Research Allowance for 2013-2014. The book component is $1,500 dollars and the research part 400 GH. Unfortunately, they will be paying us using an averaged exchange rate of 2013 when the cedi was worth double what it is today and 2014. So at most we will probably only get $1,000 after taxes, maybe even less. The government is also still adamant about permanently ending the Book and Research Allowance after this year in favor of a research fund where it will determine who gets funding. UTAG has been strongly opposed to such a scheme in the past. The potential for such a fund to be used as a means of political patronage is immense.

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