Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta
A sum of GHc154 million has been issued by the Ministry of Finance to cover the outstanding balances owed by nursing trainees, according to information disclosed by Isaac Offei Baah, the Ministry of Health's Public Relations Officer.
He added that GHC62 million had been paid last week. Another GHC30 million has been disbursed this week, and another GHC62 million is anticipated to be disbursed the next week.
During a Tuesday, November 28, interview with TV3's Daniel Opoku, Mr. Offei Baah urged the trainees to have patience with the government until all of their outstanding balances are settled.
"We have an arrangement with them, and we are aware that we owe them money. After talking about it for a while, the request was for seven months.
As I said to you yesterday, we paid for two months last week. Another tranche was also issued, and we anticipate paying out another tranche by the end of the next week. Therefore, it's not as though the government isn't paying them; rather, it's just paying them what is rightfully theirs," he stated.
"The only reason it is taking so long is that we are all aware of the predicament we were in earlier," he continued. We are going to come out of this predicament by God's will, thus the government has started giving out funds is one of the reasons we can say our nursing trainees and nurses should exercise some bit of patience for us, we will get the money for them, we have started paying them as agreed and this week another tranche is gone, next week another tranche will also go.
"So far, we've received GHC62 million from last week, GHC30 million this week, and GHC62 million more is anticipated. You may thus examine the amount of money. Nearly 150 percent more nurses are now in the workforce than there were a decade ago. Therefore, if admissions are limited to 30,000 students year, it should indicate that 30,000 students will graduate during the following three years.
This occurs at the same time that former president John Dramani Mahama, the flagbearer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), instructed Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia and President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to pay the allowance for nursing trainees.
Recall that during his tenure in government, Mr. Mahama stopped providing teaching and nursing trainees with allowances in order for more people to access the training institutions.
He argued that the payment of the allowance was denying more people access to education.
But President Akufo-Addo upon assumption of office, restored the allowance.
But the nurse trainees said for two years now, they have not received any payment from the government.
Source: Laud Nartey, 3News
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