Pay our allowances or we demonstrate – Trainee nurses to government

Some trainee nurses in the country have given government an ultimatum to pay their eight months allowance arrears else they will pour on the street to demonstrate.

The Ghana Nurses and Midwife Trainees Association says that payment of the allowances will be a major boost for the students who are writing their end of semester examination.

The General Secretary of the Association who spoke to Citi FM said that students are owed over GHC56,000.

“We are at the peak of writing exams and a lot of our members depend on the allowances to pay their school fees and their inability to do that will stop them from writing exams. The allowance was one of the promises this government made to us in the lead up to the 2016 election, and they did their best to fulfil it, to some extent.

“The last payment was made in November 2020, but they were the payments for March, April, and May 2020. So, since May 2020, Allowances have come to a halt. The government promised us monthly allowance payments but hasn’t fulfilled them. Also, before the payments were halted there was no defined method. Sometimes they pay after three, four or five months.”

“We are not only going to say that this will be the last resort. If it will take conferences or walking on the streets to cry to government for the over GHS56,000 we are owed [to be paid], we will do just that,” he stated.

The allowance was scrapped by the previous NDC government but was restored by the NPP after it assumed power.

Payment of the allowance has however not been consistent with students threatening to boycott classes in 2018.