Prof Opoku-Agyemang explains why Mahama paid only 3-month salary arrears to teachers

Vice Presidential Candidate for the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Prof. Jane Naana Opoku-Agyemang has justified the decision by the erstwhile Mahama administration to pay teachers three months’ salary despite the claim they worked for over a year.

She indicates that affected teachers were not employees of government and as such could not have claimed salaries they were not entitled to.

According to her, these were teachers who were employed by headmasters and mistresses of the various schools and not the government.

She said some of these teachers were given appointment letters by their District Education Service without the approval of the parent body which is the Ministry of Education.

Speaking on Accra-based Joy Prime in an interview, the NDC’s Vice Presidential Candidate recalled her interaction with one teacher who complained to her of teaching for several years without salary.

“There were times when I went to the field there was a case in point, I think it was a small school in the Upper East and there was this young man who approached and said he had taught for years and had not been paid. So I wanted to see his letter of appointment, he didn’t have any. So how did he get in? Because the headmaster said he should come and teach and when the opportunity comes, they would employ him. Headmasters don’t employ. And it wasn’t the only story. There were too many of them going around.”

She said she informed the Ministry of Finance of the developments and was told that the Ministry was ready to pay three months immediately.

“So when we made the report to the Finance (Ministry), I said the situation was very bad. They said, okay, they would pay them 3 months immediately. They will do validation and they will go case by case. And I was interested in finding out administratively what could have gone wrong for such a situation to arise."

"I noticed that sometimes the letter of appointment had been issued by the district and there was no copy to the center, there was no copy to the Accountant General’s department. There was no copy to the Ministry of Finance but the district office does not pay so the Ministry does not even know that these persons existed. So how would they be paid?”

She said the NPP then took advantage of the situation to criticize the government telling the teachers it was an attempt to rid them of their monies while promising them to end the validation when they come to power.