Ho, March 30, GNA - The Volta Regional Executive of the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT) on Wednesday cautioned its members in the region to be wary of 93a group calling itself coalition of concerned teachers".

A statement signed by Mr Kenneth Adevu, NAGRAT Regional Assistant Secretary and copied to the Ghana News Agency, said leadership of the group was misinforming and misleading teachers and the general public and should not be taken seriously by NAGRAT members. The statement said one Ernest Opoku, who alleges to be the leader of the concerned teachers group, peddled a falsehood when he said that teachers had received their salaries for March without the 15 per cent Retention Premium and that the errors were not corrected. "We in NAGRAT find this statement not only misleading but malicious. Indeed, the initial agreement was that the payment of the Retention Premium in March would be dependent on the correction of all the errors and the running of the 15 per cent Retention Premium to be paid by the 4th of April 2011," it said.

The statement said it was worrying that leaders of the group continued to shift the goal posts on their concerns and had given enough reasons to believe that the only ambition of its leaders was to ride at the back of hiccup in the implementation of the SSSS to achieve 93cheap popularity to eventually become leaders through illegal means or unauthorized procedures."

It said plans of the group to merge NAGRAT and the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) into one Union was impossible because NAGRAT's Constitution did not support that.

"NAGRAT belongs to NAGRAT members and under no circumstance should NAGRAT members sit down for any GNAT member to determine the modus operandi of NAGRAT", the statement said. It said nobody in the NAGRAT leadership perpetuates himself or herself in power and urged GNAT members who have issues with their leadership to sort it out within their Union without destroying the hard-won reputation of the NAGRAT leadership. The statement expressed the unflinching support of the leadership of NAGRAT-Volta to the National leadership and entreated all members to remain united and resolute to fight for the improvement of conditions of service for the Ghanaian teacher.