Government spreads election inducements on police, soldiers and teachers

Government will pay all salary arrears owed to teachers in the first week of December, the Minister of Education, Dr. Mathew Opoku Prempeh, has said in what appears to be election goodies to the teachers.

In addition to that, Continuous Professional Development (CPD) Allowance, will be settled with November 2020 salary payment.

His claim comes as the government has increased the salaries of some state workers, including personnel of the Ghana police service.

Soldiers, have not gotten any increment in their salaries, however, those on Peacekeeping duties outside the country, have been told they will be getting US$40 as an allowance, however, it is effective in January 2021, if the Akufo-Addo government is retained.

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According to Dr. Opoku Prempeh, alias NAPO, the government has decided that there would be no taxes on various allowance arrears to be paid.

“We have spoken to the Finance Ministry and no taxes will be deducted from the allowances so if you go to the bank and there is tax deduction alert us for refund,” he said.

Addressing a cross-section of teachers and educational workers at Akropong-Akwapim in the Eastern Region on Thursday, November 26, 2020, Dr. Prempeh, said that government was mindful of the crucial role teachers’ play and will continue to fashion out policies that would inure to their benefits.

He said: “the government mindful of the role of the teacher has abolished all insensitive practices that were in the best interest of teacher.”

“That insensitive three months allowance policy is no more because it was in bad taste for teachers,” he said.

Dr. Prempeh expressed gratitude to teachers in various Senior High Schools (SHSs) for churning out the best of results in the West African Senior Schools Certificate Examination (WASSCE) for this year.

“The government is thankful to teachers for helping the students to perform well at the WASSCE this year than ever before. That is the kind of direction we taking Ghana to,” he said.

The education minister said that teachers have shown that they could be counted on, even in the midst of the deadly COVID-19.

He, therefore, charged parents to also be thankful to teachers as parents were finding it difficult to live with their own wards.

“I will entreat all parents to visit the schools of their children when school resumes and thank the teachers because of the hard work they do because parents were finding it difficult to stay with their wards during the COVID-19 era,” he said.

Dr. Prempeh, said that the government would have wished to do more but the country’s economy has not grown sufficiently for that.

“The President mindful of the importance of teachers, wants their conditions to improved astronomically but the economic situation was a hindrance,” he said.

He said that the government was mindful of various allowances and would work in making sure those allowances are sorted as stipulated in the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA).

The minister explained that Responsibility allowance, for instance, was not for all categories of teachers but for some nine categories so it was wrong for all teachers to think that they were entitled to such allowance.

“Transfer allowance is paid to only teachers who go on transfer at the behest of the Ghana Education Service (GES) and not teachers who request for transfers,” he said.

On promotions, Dr. Prempeh, said that hitherto, promotions were fraught with corruption and that the new system under which aptitude test is conducted for promotions was working to make things simple.