No November, December salaries for New Juaben Municipality teachers

Koforidua, Dec. 29, GNA- Many teachers of public basic schools in the New Juaben Municipality who went to the banks to collect their salaries for December, returned home disappointed as the Accountant General's Department failed to pay their salaries to the banks. While some of the disappointed teachers left the bank quietly, others who were walking in groups could be heard cursing while the emotional ones left with tears in their eyes.

One of the teachers who spoke to the Ghana News Agency on anonymity said he and other teachers were transferred from Koforidua-Ada Local Authority(L/A) School to Akwadum on the Suhum-Koforidua road. He said those of them who were transferred were not given any transfer grant and he had to spend 9,000 cedis daily commuting from Koforidua to Akwadum.

He said in November, he did not receive his salary for the month and had spent all his money leaving only 200,000 cedis, which he was going to use to buy his diabetic drugs.

He said he has children in the Senior Secondary School(SSS) and had no money to pay for their school fees when school reopens nor even raise money to pay for his transportation from Koforidua to Akwadum. Commenting on the issue, the New Juaben Municipal Secretary of the Ghana National Association of Teachers(GNAT), Mr Frank Obeng said he was aware that about 90 per cent of the 1,565 teachers in the New Juaben Municipality did not receive their salaries for November, 2006 on the instruction of the Ghana Education Service(GES) Council because the teachers did not report to school to teach in October this year. He said GNAT has apologized to the GES Council and the Council had promised to pay back the salaries that it withdrew for the teachers for November and so could not understand why the salaries of the teachers for December were not in.

Mr Obeng said some of the teachers who did not receive their December salaries had started reporting at his office and he would report to the regional and the national secretariat of the association for the necessary action.

The Eastern Regional Chairman of GNAT, Mr Solomon Djaba-Mensah described the situation as embarrassing and called for the establishment of emergency fund by the association to take care of such situation.

He said GNAT has the proposal on the drawing board and this was the time that efforts be put in place so that the association could have some funds to support its members when they fall into such situations.