Some members of the Coalition of Unpaid Newly Posted Ghana Education Service Staff (2022 cohort) took their concerns directly to the offices of the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT).
The group accused the mother union of teachers, GNAT for failing to push hard enough for the payment of their salary arrears, among other grievances.
Many of these teachers say they have worked for over fourteen months without pay, leaving them struggling to cover rent, transport, and basic living costs.
For newly posted teacher, Josephine Gyekye, the delay in payment of salary is having a psychological effect on her.
She said, “From school to work, what I’m eating, my rent, light bill, water bill and all are becoming difficult. It’s having some, I don’t know, psychological effects on most of us.”
Daniel Anokye is the President of the Coalition of Unpaid Newly Posted GES Staff. For him, he doesn’t understand why government will come out with a payment plan for unpaid newly posted nurses and midwives and sideline teachers.
“Why is government prioritizing the nurse over teachers? What is the problem? Are we not providing critical services? What is GNAT’s take on this because from the nurses and what they said, the GRNMA has been very instrumental in their fight and it’s evident. They didn’t need to write any petition to anyone for GRNMA to join them. Now we are at crossroads. Two groups of people are owned by the government and the government is paying one, so we are seeking for an intervention,” he lamented.
The National Secretary of the group, Emmanuel Ofori, appealed to authorities to immediately resolve their issues, as was done for the 2024/2025 newly posted nurses and midwives.
“Right now, as we speak, the Ministry of Health has come out with a payment plan. But what about the teachers? The two of us planned on going on demonstration. So, we are telling the Minister for Finance, Education and the GES Director General to meet us as soon as possible to resolve the issue at hand. If by 11th March nothing has happened, we will go on demonstration.”
The group met behind closed doors with the Head of Salaries at the Ghana National Association of Teachers, Isaac Baah, to discuss how best their issues can be resolved.
Among the issues they want addressed are, non-payment of salary arrears, non-issuance of staff identification numbers for some teachers, unjustified changes in assumption-of-duty dates and errors in management units, ranks, and salary points.
