The Ghana Nurses and Midwives Trainees’ Association has threatened to stage a national protest if the government does not pay its members eight months’ worth of allowance arrears.
The allowances were reinstated by the current New Patriotic Party (NPP) government after they were abolished by the previous National Democratic Congress (NDC) administration on the grounds that they had outlived their value and that students could obtain student loans in the same way as other tertiary students.
Lambert Nsobilla, the National Secretary of the Ghana Nurses and Midwife Trainees’ Association, told Eyewitness News that efforts to get the Health Ministry to pay them have failed.
“We are in the midst of exam season, and many of our members 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 do whatever it takes to get the over GHS56,000 we are owed [to be paid], including holding conferences and walking the streets,” he said.
Trainee nurses and midwives had previously complained of the government failing to pay their salaries, prompting claims that the allowances, which had been abolished by the former National Democratic Congress administration, have been reinstated.
The same question prompted trainee nurses to threaten a class boycott in 2018.
As a result, the government was forced to release GHS33 million to pay the debts.
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Other health student groups, including students from numerous hygiene schools, who were told that their allowances would be restored, had to picket at the Ministry of Health before their grievances were answered.
SOURCE: ATLFMONLINE
