The Ghana Nurses and Midwife Trainees’ Association has called the Ministry of Health’s claims that it owes members of the Ghana Nurses and Midwife Trainees’ Association just three months’ worth of allowances “bizarre and unusual.”
In a press release signed by its Chief Director, Kwabena Boadu Oku-Afari, the Ministry of Health denied allegations that it owed GNMTA members an eight-month allowance.
“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.”
The Ministry, according to the association’s President, Elijah Amful Adjei, is avoiding the facts.
In an interview with Eyewitness News, he described the Ministry of Health’s press release as “bizarre,” “strange,” and “incongruent and self-contradictory.”
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According to Amful Adjei, if students were forced to pay maximum tuition before writing exams during the pandemic, they are entitled to their allowances as well.
“They [the Health Ministry] claim that COVID-19 interrupted the academic calendar, and as a result, they are only going to pay us a three-month payment, but the question is, you know all of this, but you had students pay full fees before they could write their exams during COVID-19. So COVID-19 threw a wrench in the academic calendar but didn’t affect school fees?”
“At the moment, we went to get a data kit for students because we knew they were using their own data to join the online courses, and we haven’t heard back from them yet. Also, anyone who finished last year are owed a month’s allowance, although the Ministry claims they are due for the months of April, May, and June. So this will give you a good impression that they are attempting to be territorial, when they are also unsure about how many months they owe us.”
SOURCE: ATLFMONLINE