Picketing won’t produce your ‘allawa’ – Ministry to Agric students

The Ministry of Agric has warned the over two thousand Agric trainees converging at its premises in protest of government’s inability to restore their scrapped allowances that picketing will not produce the results they need.

The protest by the students from the five Agric training colleges in the country is coming a day after government launched the restoration of the nursing trainee allowances amid fanfare at Sunyani.

Students of the Kwadaso Agric Training College took to the street on Tuesday to register their displeasure over government’s decision not to restore their trainee allowances.

In 2013, the government of former president John Mahama scrapped the payment of allowances to students of colleges of education including the Kwadaso Agric Training College — a decision that was met with grave disapproval.

According to Stanley Mensah, a leader of the Agric trainee students, government is being selective in restoring the allowances hence their protest.

“We are not different from the Nurses neither are we different from the Teachers, so if they have restored that of these two institutions nothing stops them from restoring ours as well. We are going to be at the premises of the Agric Ministry until we also receive our share,” he noted.

In his reaction, however, the Public Relations Officer of the Ministry, Ridwan Alhassan said the students have the right to protest but that will not ensure the allowances are restored immediately.

“The Minister has made a number of efforts to make some decisions on the restoration. The restoration of allowances does not lie only on the Minister. I cannot say if the students picketing will produce the allowances. It is within the rights of the students to picket. We cannot tell them not to picket. I am sure the Minister will reassure them that efforts are being made to restore the allowances,” he told host of Morning Starr Francis Abban Wednesday.