Ghanaian Doctors Join Labour Agitations: Demand Cost of Living Allowance As Economic Hardship Bites

• Doctors in Ghana have also joined agitations on the labour front for the Cost of Living Allowance (COLA)
• Spokesperson of the mother organisation for doctors, the Ghana Medical Association (GMA), says 20% of their salaries must be paid as a special allowance
• The COLA, workers believe, has become important as Ghanaians reel under harsh economic times

Ghanaian doctors have joined the fray on the labour front about the Cost of Living Allowance (COLA), which public workers are important to cushion them from economic hardship.

The Ghana Medical Association (GMA) says its members share the same sentiments expressed by teacher unions and the Trades Union Congress about the COLA.

COLA is a proposal for the government to payment of 20% of public workers’ salaries as allowance amid growing economic hardship in Ghana.

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Four teacher unions – the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT), Teachers and Education Workers Union (TEWU) and Coalition of Concerned Teachers (CCT) – have already declared a strike over the COLA.

General Secretary of GMA, Titus Beyuo, said just organised labour, doctors too are being battered by the economic hardship in Ghana.

He made the following comments during a programme, The Probe, on Joy News:

“We are singing the same song and we have wished that government would have started with us much earlier to negotiate and discuss this.”

He said doctors buy goods – especially fuel and foodstuff, which have seen dramatic inflation – from the same market as other public workers.

“Doctors have parked their cars and are now getting on board ‘trotro’ because they can no longer afford fuel,” he stressed.

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Four teacher unions declare nationwide strike since July 4 over COLA

Meanwhile, YEN.com.gh reported in a previous story that four teacher unions in Ghana declared a nationwide strike from Monday, July 4, 2022, to push the government to pay Cost of Living Allowance.

The Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT), Teachers and Educational Workers Union (TEWU), and the Coalition of Concerned Teachers Ghana (CCT), want the government to pay them 20% of their basic salary as allowance.

“We can no longer bear the hardship,” the teacher unions said in a joint statement.

They cite gaping inequality in the salaries of public sector workers as demotivating.

Source: YEN.com.gh