The incoming New Patriotic Party (NPP) government will definitely make provisions in its first budget for most of the promises made on education, including the restoration of the teacher trainee allowances, payment of salary arrears, and scrap the ‘three months’ pay policy, Michael Nsowah, a former Director General of the Ghana Education Service (GES), has said.
According to him, there is a temporary budget prepared by the outgoing government for the first three months of 2017 and that is what the new administration will use, after which a full budget will be prepared by the new government to cater for all the promises made by the NPP ahead of the December 7 polls.
His comments follow a 100-day ultimatum given by the Coalition of Concerned Teachers to the incoming government to fulfil all the promises they made to the educational sector.
King Ali Mohammed, Convener of the Coalition, told Chief OTECNEWS on Thursday December 15: “They (NPP) promised the restoration of the teacher trainee allowance, three months’ pay policy, payment of salary arrears and so we want to tell them that immediately after 7 January they should target these promises. If they fail to implement these things, then the Ghanaian voter will advise himself; we will punish them dearly.
“The first 100 days in office is enough for them to do one or two things. They must start something for us to see that they have the political will to do all these things.”
But responding to this on the same programme, Mr Nsowah, who is a member of the Education Committee of the NPP, said: “Definitely, the NPP government will implement those promises, but I don’t know why the Concerned Teachers have given us 100 days, because the outgoing government had a temporary budget that will lapse at the end of the first three months of next year.
Source, OTECNEWS
