Ministry reacts to GNAT's ultimatum - Orders district directors to submit names within one week

November 24, 2007 (Page 3)

Story: Mabel Aku Baneseh

THE Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning has given a one-week ultimatum to district directors of education to submit the names of teachers who passed out in 2005 and are currently at post to enable the ministry to pay their outstanding salary arrears.
The ministry attributed the delay in the payment of the salary arrears of teachers who passed out in 2005 to the failure of the district directors to submit the names of teachers at post and gave the directors up to November 30, 2007 to adhere to the directive.
In an interview with the Daily Graphic, the Director of Budget at the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, Mr Kwabena Adjei Mensah, gave the assurance that the ministry would pay the salary arrears of teachers next month.
Reacting to an ultimatum from the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) which gave the government up to next month to settle the salary arrears of teachers who passed out in 2005, Mr Mensah said it was not true that the majority of teachers who passed out in 2005 had not been paid.
He said records made available to the ministry by officials of the Ghana Education Service (GES) indicated that 501 teacher trainees passed out in 2005.
Explaining further, Mr Mensah said teacher trainees were normally posted to districts immediately they finished school and they were paid allowances until the GES confirmed that they were at post and had also passed their examinations.
He said as of the time the Controller and Accountant-General's Department was moving from the Integrated Personnel Payroll Database One (IPPD I) to IPPD II, the confirmed names of teachers at post had not been submitted by the GES.
The President of GNAT, Mr Joseph Adjei, in a letter addressed to the Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, had said the 2005/06 arrears of trained teachers and teachers who were promoted during that period were still hanging.
The letter said the rank and file of teachers needed to be convinced by initiatives on the part of the employer, otherwise it would be very difficult to contain the “imminent explosion”.
It indicated that the present labour environment was veiled by an uneasy calm and advised the government to act expeditiously to forestall the preventable.