Subsidy delay: GNAT lunges at GES boss

A threat issued by the Director General of the Ghana Education Service (GES) Jacob Kor, to sanction heads of the various Senior High Schools, who failed to submit data from their respective schools for processing in connection of payment of feeding grants and other subsidies, has been described as unfortunate by Mr. David Ofori Acheampong, General Secretary of the Ghana National Association of Teacher (GNAT).

On Wednesday July 20, Cecilia Kwakye Coffie, President of Conference of Heads of Assisted Senior High Schools (CHASS), said at a press conference that CHASS would close down the schools over unpaid subsidies.

She said: “Some of the pressing challenges are unpaid absorbed fees and feeding grants, unpaid Ghana government scholarships, unpaid progressively free scholarship, inadequate feeding fees of GHC3.30 per student per day for three meals, high electricity, water and telephone bills, high expenditure on sanitation and fumigation due to bedbug infestation in schools, non-payment of GoG grant for administration since 2011, and no replacement of retired teaching and non-teaching staff.”

In response to the concerns raised by CHASS, Mr Kor blamed the delay in payment of the subsidies on the late submission of data by school heads.

He said at a counter press conference on Thursday July 21 that: “The untimely release of subsidies and grants is partly due to the lackadaisical attitudes of some of the heads in terms of the submission of data. I have the list of schools that have not submitted data for the data we are processing now. How do we process some and leave others. I will query all those heads who as at now have not submitted the data for the processing of the subsidy,” Mr. Kor said.

But speaking on Friday July 22, the GNAT General Secretary said: “I think the response of the director general is unfortunate. When there are problems and the problems are not being resolved, the only avenue is to bring it into the court of public opinion that these are the challenges that confront us… And, so, I believe that that should have rather created the platform for the director general to have met them to see the way forward – even the plans to pay their moneys. [But] yesterday, you issued threats to say that the people are irresponsible. That is completely unacceptable. Who doesn’t now that the district education offices, which the director general himself superintends, are less resourced to the extent that most of the directors go to the second cycle schools for A4 paper to do their official work? The Director General himself knows that. Even fuel sometimes to move the regional director’s vehicle, you go soliciting funds from the second cycle schools, but if the people are coming out and they are making genuine concerns known to Ghanaians and you come and rubbish it and say that they don’t have the locus to say that. It is completely unacceptable”.

“…Even [with] the feeding, [in] present day Ghana, you are giving them GHS3.30, we have gone past the era where we have been embarking on nationwide strike because of salaries, but when the logistics we need to use in doing the work are denied us, why should we go and sit in the classroom. We are telling the Director of Ghana Education Service that if it comes to September and these things are not available, we (GNAT) will fully support those (CHASS) as an association.”