Pre-tertiary Public Sector Teachers Angry with SIC over non-refund of Money

Pre-tertiary public school teachers across the country are angry with the State Insurance Company (SIC) for its failure to refund to them monies deducted wrongly from their salaries.

According to the teachers, the Ghana Education Service (GES) and the SIC deducted an amount of GH₵10 from the salaries of close to 250,000 teachers across the country every month for over a year without their consent beginning June 2018.

This means that the State Insurance Company realised an amount of GH₵2,500,000 every month for at least a year.

“We are thinking of a legal suit against the SIC for deducting our monies illegally. What is even annoying is the posture they exhibit when we go to them for a refund after filling the exit forms,” stated some of the teachers who preferred to speak on anonymity said.

It would be recalled that the President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, in order to improve the well-being of public sector teachers announced an insurance package for them. As part of the process, the Education Ministry tasked the GES to have discussions with the SIC on the modalities for the insurance package.

Investigations conducted by Ghananewsonline.com.gh however revealed that the GES/SIC did not consult the affected teachers to seek their consent before monies were deducted from their salaries at the end of June, 2018.

The news of the wrongful deduction was met with rage by the teacher unions across the country and so after a number of discussions between the teacher unions, GES and SIC, a directive was given for teachers who were not interested in the policy to fill an exit form for the Controller and Accountant General (C&AG) to stop the deductions and a refund to be paid to them by the SIC.

Some of the teachers who did not want to be on the policy, initially decided not to fill the forms but insisted the monies should be refunded to them in the manner it was deducted since C&AG and SIC had records of all of them whose monies were deducted.

However, upon several appeals from their unions, the affected teachers filled the exit forms as far back as January 2019 out of which some few teachers had their monies refunded.

Ghananewsonline.com.gh investigations has revealed that there are over 100,000 teachers whose monies spanning between six (6) to thirteen (13) months are still waiting for a refund of their monies.

A visit to the Makola Mall Branch of the SIC at the Central Business District (CBD) in Accra revealed heaps of exit forms filled by teachers across the country which an official there who preferred to remain anonymous confided in this reporter the company was still working on them.

The same official, who, was inundated with calls from teachers across the country demanding their monies told teachers “there is a directive from the top echelons of the company for them to halt payments until further notice.”

Several attempts to speak to the Claims Manager at SIC on the issue however proved futile.

By Francis Tandoh || ghananewsonline.com.gh