Former President John Mahama has challenged President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to fulfill his campaign promise of paying all the allowances of trainee teachers and nurses.
The trainees, in recent times, have been agitating for their accumulated allowances to be paid.
Mr. Mahama said his administration had a plan to systematically migrate the trainees onto the student loan scheme in order to create room for an increased enrollment.
But, these plans, the now National Democratic Congress (NDC) Presidential aspirant said, were frustrated by then candidate Nana Akufo-Addo’s promises to restore the allowances once he was elected President.“You do everything with a plan. Look at teacher trainee allowances for instance. We explained to the students that we wanted to employ more of them so we will shift them onto the students’ loan scheme just as their colleagues in other schools. This was to invest the extra money into building more schools so they can be employed after school. Our colleagues (NPP) said when they come into office, they will pay because they claimed teacher trainee allowance is an insignificant percentage of our GDP.”
Addressing party members at Ada in the Greater Accra region, John Mahama stated that having won the elections, Nana Akufo-Addo must honour his promises.
“By God’s grace, you have come into office so pay it (allowances). You promised and so you must fulfill it. Promises are meant to be fulfilled. So, the teacher trainee allowances, the nursing trainee allowances must be paid. Now that NABCO has come, are we in the few months going to hear that their allowances have not been paid?, he quizzed.
Allowances restored
Prior to the 2016 general elections, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) assured nurses and teacher trainees it would restore their scrapped allowances 3 months after it has been elected into office.
According to the then running-mate of the NPP, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, the NPP will budget for the full payment of allowances for all students in the various Nursing and Midwifery Training schools as well as teacher training colleges.
Dr. Bawumia accused the then Mahama government of scrapping the allowances of trainees due to its high indebtedness from excessive borrowing and the accompanying interest payments.
“They [NDC] have borrowed so much, just one year’s interest payment can pay teacher training and nurses training allowances for 42 years, and that is why Nana Akufo-Addo has given his word, when we come [into office] the very first budget before march 2017, we will restore and teacher training and nurses training allowance,” Bawumia said.
Mahama scraps trainee allowances
The then NDC government in 2014 scrapped teacher trainee allowance, despite several calls to compel government to reintroduce it.
Nurses in the Upper East Region warned that the status of allowances would influence their vote in the in 2016 December polls.
But government insisted the decision allowed it to expand various health and educational infrastructure in the country as well as remove the restrictions on admission to the various training institutions.
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By: Nii Larte Lartey & Sixtus Dong Ullo | citinewsroom.com | Ghana
The post Pay all trainee allowances as you promised – Mahama to Nana Addo appeared first on Citi Newsroom.
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