The Ghana Education Service (GES) has urged Teacher Unions to exercise restraint as the relevant partners work in concert to ensure that the outstanding claims of teachers are properly validated before payment to save the national purse.
Responding to the issues of arrears and the threat of industrial action at a press conference, held on Friday, the Director General of the GES, Mr Jacob Kor , said: “The exercise to scrutinise documentation of all staff will continue until all bad nuts are removed.”
“Therefore Metropolitan, Municipal and District Directors of Education have to be diligent in scrutinising claim documents submitted by all GES staff”.
“We have surplus money left and I see no reason why people should go on strike, it is unfortunate that the teacher unions have taken this stand despite all efforts by the National Labour Commission, Fair Wages and Salaries Commission, Controller and Accountant General, Ministry of Finance, Ghana Education Service, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations, and the teacher unions to come to an understanding.”
Mr Kor explained that the Non-Payment of Salary arrears to the 2013 and 2014 batches of newly recruited teachers, teachers on promotion, and those who were to be re-instated into the Service, was because the claims had to go through some processes.
These include the collation of the names of the affected teachers and the validation of the claims before payment was made.
Mr Kor said under the process for the resolution of all outstanding issues, it was scheduled to pay salary arrears on or before 30th June, 2015 under the auspices of the Chief Director of Ministry of Finance.
However, it was later detected that some teachers were holding fake documents, including certificates to support their claims while others were not at post.
He confirmed that out of the 14,575 input forms that were initially submitted for processing and payment, 6,268 were found to be genuine with all the supporting document, while the remaining 8,307 were queried by the Audit Service.
The Director General said, as at December 31, last year, the genuine list of 6,383 beneficiaries were re-submitted through the Regional Education offices to the GES Headquarters by the district education offices while 7,750 supplementary input forms were awaiting submission to the Audit Service.
“Following a decision taken at a technical meeting in the presence of the teacher unions we have submitted the data of 7,590 applicants to the Fair Wages and Salaries Commission with copies to the Ministry of Finance, “he said.
“All the 6,268 teachers whose claims were validated have since January 1, 2016 been dully paid.
“Also, an amount of GHC1,235,244.00 have been made as Vehicle Maintenance Allowances to deserving teachers”.
He said as at 30th October, last year, GHC 2,340,150.02 was being paid as transfer grant to 2,248 beneficiaries, while other monies had been paid in other allowances such as overtime to 1,781 staff of the GES.
Credit: GNA
