The New Patriotic Party (NPP) has assured
nurses and teacher trainees it will restore their scrapped allowances 3 months
after it has been elected into office.
According to the Vice Presidential
nominee 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.
Speaking to nurses
at the Pantang hospital in Accra during a campaign tour, Dr. Bawumiah accused
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
Akuffo 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,” Bawumiah said.
‘Background’
Government in 2014
scrapped teacher trainee allowance, but there have been several calls to compel
government to reintroduce it. Recently, trainee nurses in the Upper East Region
warned that the status of allowances would influence their vote in the in
December polls.
Government said 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.
‘Government partially restores allowance’
Earlier in
July, government said it had restored allowances for trainee nurses after a
technical committee set up by the President to review the allowances for nursing
trainees, recommended payment of an abated allowance with a possibility to
migrate them unto the Students Loan Scheme.
‘Allowance
inadequate’
The Ghana Nurses and Midwives Trainees Association in a press
conference, subsequently rejected government’s offer to pay them GHc 150 monthly
as allowances.
According to them, the amount was woefully inadequate per
the memorandum of understanding they signed with the Ministry of Health in
2014.
President John Mahama while on a tour in the Central Region
recently, said his government would not backtrack on its decision to scrap the
allowances, saying he would rather lose the elections than restore the
allowances.
He tweeted; “On the matter of trainee teacher allowances,
better to lose on principle than win using falsehood. We’ll not reverse the
decision.
