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30.11.2019 Education

Gov’t Given Upto December 5 To Pay Teachers' Arrears

Govt Given Upto December 5 To Pay Teachers' Arrears
30.11.2019 LISTEN

The Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) and the Coalition of Concerned Teachers- Ghana have called on the Controller and Accountant-General’s Department (CAGD) and the Ghana Education Service (GES) to pay all arrears owed teachers by December 5, 2019.

The President of the Coalition of Concerned Teachers, King Ali Awudu, told Citi News that the teachers would go on strike the next day if their demands are not met.

“We don't want to be mischievous. We've given them up till 5th December but if by 5th December, the monies do not hit the accounts of the teachers then expect us to withdraw our services the following Monday, I assure you.”

This latest call follows the previous failures to meet deadlines to pay the arrears owed teachers.

Mr. Awudu recounted that the last deadline that was missed by the Government was in November.

“We have had too many deadlines. The last deadline that we had was for everybody to be paid in November. Unfortunately, they only called us to tell us about challenges that they were facing for which reason they couldn't pay.”

Despite the purported appeals from the government, the President of Coalition said the teachers were losing faith in the dialogues.

“We think that all those challenges that they are enumerating if indeed they exist, are not challenges that are supposed to be solved by us the teacher unions so we think they are dilly-dallying with us.”

Concerns from Education Minister

The Education Minister, Mathew Opoku Prempeh, has in the past admitted that similar strikes were justified because of the “chronic” delays that plague remuneration and other human resource concerns in the civil service.

“If you are a teacher and you are recruited but for one year, you have not been put on the salary scale I can understand. You and I will do the same.”

“We hope that great sense of commitment to the nation will prevail and we can talk to the teachers to go back to the classroom…When I worked as a junior doctor, it was

---citinewsroom

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