The Ministry of Health has dismissed allegations that the government owes the Ghana Nurse-Midwife Trainees’ Association eight months’ pay.
The Ghana Nurses and Midwife Trainees’ Association has threatened to stage a national protest if the government does not pay its members eight months’ worth of allowance arrears.
Lambert Nsobilla, the National Secretary of the Ghana Nurses and Midwife Trainees’ Association, told Citi News that efforts to get the Health Ministry to pay them have failed.
“We are approaching our tests, and many of our participants depend on allowances to cover their school fees, and their failure to do so would prevent them from taking the exams. The allowance was one of the promises given to us by this government in the run-up to the 2016 election, and they did their best to keep it, to a degree. The most recent payment was received in November 2020, but it was for the months of March, April, and May of that year. Allowances have been frozen since May 2020. The government promised us monthly allowance payments, but they are yet to arrive. There was still no fixed procedure prior to the payments being halted. After three, four, or five months, they can pay.”
“We’re not only going to suggest that this is the last option. We will go to conferences or walk the streets to demand the over GHS56,000 we are owed [to be paid] from the government,” he said.
However, the Ministry of Health, in a press release signed by Kwabena Boadu Oku-Afari, Chief Director, claimed that the group’s allegations are false.
“The Ministry of Health wishes to reassure the public that it does not owe any student an eight-month payment, as reported in the GNMTA press release, nor has it stopped paying trainee allowances to students at government health training institutions.
In a tweet, the Ministry said that it was on track to pay the trainees’ three-month arrears.
In the meantime, the Ministry has processed the payment for continuing students for January, February, and March 2021, which has been authorised by the Ministry of Finance for the Controller and Accountant General to allocate the funds, according to the statement.
Related Article: Nurses and midwives in training threaten to protest if allowances are not paid
SOURCE: ATLFMONLINE
