Teacher trainees challenge Education Ministry over GH¢50m feeding grant payment

Teacher trainees across the country have challenged the Ministry of Education to show proof of releasing GH¢50,532,000 as payment for their feeding grants.

A statement by the Ministry last Wednesday said the amount covers the second semester of the 2014/2015 academic year and the first semester of the 2015/2016 year.

But in a rejoinder letter written on January 3, the teacher trainees pointed out that that statement was just to throw dust in the eyes of the public after they served notice to picket at the Ministry.
“It is unfortunate the content and information of the said subject matter are not trustworthy, deceptive, unreliable and a cover up,” the letter copied to the president, John Dramani Mahama, said.

The trainees claim the Vice President, Paa Kwesi Amissah-Arthur, had made a similar statement “and yet still it is nowhere to be found”. “The press release doesn’t answer the question of where about of the overall GH¢ 50,000,000 released for the payment of the feeding grant arrears. “The release is only a cover-up to divert public attention from the truth since after the release, TTAG executives did our cross checks from the colleges the money was nowhere to hit the colleges account.”

The statement from the Teacher Trainees Association of Ghana (TTAG) presented a breakdown of the arrears as GH¢560 each for Year Two and newly trained students for the second semester of the 2015/2016 academic year and GH¢1,120 each for Year Three students for the first and second semesters of the same academic year.

“Finally we are calling on the government as a matter of urgency within its few days left to take the necessary steps to pay these monies to curtail a situation of trainees from been prevented from writing their end of semester examination.”