Legions of students believed to be members of the Graduate Students’ Association of Ghana (GRASAG), yesterday, September 28, 2016, threw caution to the wind and virtually seize the official vehicle of the Minister for Employment and Labour Relations, Haruna Iddrissu when he attempted calming the students, who had veered into the offices of the Minister of Finance to present a petition.
The students, clad in red wielded placards with various inscriptions including: ‘Prez Mahama must respect Graduate Students,’ ‘Invest in Research Mr. Mahama,’ ‘Enough is enough Give us our Bursary Now,’ the students are demanding immediate payment of their grants and for almost about thirty minutes, they seize the Minister’s vehicle with registration number NR 999-13, in the full glare of the police personnel.
The tyres of the silver-grey BMW vehicle was blocked by the unruly students with stones and broken bricks under the watchful eyes of the hepless police personnel detailed to maintain law and order.
The student’s body engaged in a scuffle with the body guard of the Minister and the driver who was for some minutes detained in the vehicle against his will.
My radio360.com can confirmed that the unruly incident was sparked by one Tanko, who claimed the body guard of the Minister had attempted pulling a pistol on him when they attempted seizing the Minister’s vehicle.
Earlier reports had it that, the Minister came to the scene when news got to him that the students were demonstrating in the area over the delays in the release of their bursaries for the past six years.
The students claimed they numbered about 32, 000 and their paltry 900 Ghana Cedis for each graduate student had not been paid over the years.
According to them, the Minister (Haruna) promised he was going to move the Deputy Minister Finance; Ato Forson, from the comfort of his office to come and receive their petition so there was no way they were going to release the driver and the vehicle until the Minister comes back.
Interestingly, it took the intervention of the two military men driving in a silver coloured Toyota Landcruiser on top speed to have the Minister’s driver released from the angry of students and for free flow of traffic in the entrance of the headquarters of the Customs Division of the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA).
“Our attention has also been drawn to a letter forwarded to the ministry of finance for payment to be effected but this has been the attitude of government over the past 6 years, which is that they will wait for an action to be taken before they see the need to act. We want to unequivocally tell government to take education with all the seriousness it deserves because education is the backbone of every nation”, they observed.
Join GhanaStar.com to receive daily email alerts of breaking news in Ghana. GhanaStar.com is your source for all Ghana News. Get the latest Ghana news, breaking news, sports, politics, entertainment and more about Ghana, Africa and beyond.
