Teachers to be punished for ....

...violating directives on Capitation Grant Akatsi, April 8, GNA - Captain Nkrabea Effah Darteh, Deputy Minister of the Interior, on Friday said any teacher who contravened government direction on the Capitation Grant would be penalised. He advised teachers and heads of schools not to be misled into imposing any PTA levies on pupils contrary to government directives. The Minister was reacting to questions at the People's Assemblies of the Akatsi and South-Tongu districts at Akatsi and Sogakope. The questioners were of the view that the 30,000 cedis per pupil under the capitation policy was not enough and suggested that PTA's should be allowed to levy pupils for the printing of examination papers and other needs.

Captain Effah Darteh told journalists, who wanted to know under which laws teachers could be prosecuted that, "any levies contravened state policy and stands punishable".

"Fee payments are regulated by government, which has decided to abolish some payments altogether and anyone outside government who re-imposes any levy breaks a rule," he stated.

Captain Effah Darteh said the economy was getting buoyant and that the level of internally generated funds being used for funding national budgets had been steadily increasing over the past six years. Mr Kofi Dzamesi, Volta Regional Minister said the Region was having a fair share of the national cake.

He said between 2001 and now 600 basic school blocks had been put up in the Region.

Mr Dzamesi urged residents to sustain the peace and hard work for which they were noted to foster development. Miss Kate Aku Aglah, South-Tongu District Chief Executive (DCE) said 22.5 billion cedis was spent on development projects in the District since 2001.

She said feasibility studies on irrigating a stretch of land at Agorgbe in the District for farming had been completed by eight American experts who promised to attract American investors to the project. Miss Aglah said the Assembly was collaborating with the Education Quality For All (EQUAL), an NGO to establish a community radio station at Sogakope.

She said the conflict between the GPRTU and PROTOA at the Sogakope Station was impeding revenue collection.