GRNMA strike: ‘We’ve pampered nurses, so we shouldn’t cry when they’re biting us’ – Franklin Cudjoe

President of IMANI Africa, Franklin Cudjoe, has issued a sharp rebuke of what he calls the chronic politicisation of trainee nurse and teacher incentives, warning that such short-term populist tactics have come at the expense of sustainable investment in Ghana’s critical public sectors.

Speaking on Channel One TV’s The Big Issue on Saturday, June 14, in the wake of the suspended nationwide strike by the Ghana Registered Nurses and Midwives Association (GRNMA), Cudjoe criticised successive governments for prioritising political optics over meaningful sectoral reform.

“How have we treated nurses even when they are training—we’ve pampered them. Haven’t we?” he asked, denouncing the cycle of reinstating and cancelling trainee allowances as a politically motivated ploy.

“Politically, one party says—John Mahama—that he is not going to pay any nurses allowance. The opposition at the time used it against him. And when they came, they started paying and rewarding these entities. I have never understood that game,” he remarked, pointing to what he called a “bizarre tradition” of treating public sector trainees as vote banks.

Cudjoe warned that this form of “shifty politics,” where allowances are dangled as electoral bait, undermines national development by misallocating scarce public funds.

“The moment we do these shifty politics and think we can garner votes through these freebies to a section of the population that do not require it, that do not need it, we should not be crying now that they have come back biting at us,” he said.

He condemned both major political parties for indulging in this practice, suggesting that funds spent on allowances would have been better used to improve working conditions, infrastructure, and salaries for fully qualified health professionals.

He argued that instead of rewarding individuals still in training, the state should prioritise those “who actually go through the grind” and deliver frontline services across the country.

Cudjoe’s criticism comes days after the GRNMA suspended its nationwide strike, which had begun on June 9 in protest against the government's proposed postponement of newly agreed conditions of service until 2026. The industrial action had paralyzed operations in many hospitals, especially in maternity and emergency units, prompting widespread public concern.

Initially, negotiations between the GRNMA, the Ministry of Health, and the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission hit a stalemate. However, mounting public pressure forced the parties back to the table, with the union agreeing to suspend the strike on June 13 after the government gave renewed assurances of an expedited review and further talks.