Pay teachers legacy arrears now is the call from over 5000 teachers who are owed salary arrears. Teachers whose legacy arrears remain unpaid have been angered by the reluctance of the GES and government to pay outstanding salaries owed teachers from 2012 to 2016.
Over 5000 teachers whose arrears remain unpaid have angrily asked the GES, Ministry of Education and the Controller and Accountant General Department to make good the debt owed teachers.
The salaries locked up are earnings of teachers for work done and government must not only speak of its intentions to pay but must be seen acting in that regard.
In a petition signed by the leadership of the aggrieved teachers, and copied to Ghanaeducation.org, indicated that the three months pay audit practice at the time the arrears accumulated was aimed at auditing all claims put forth by the Inter-personal and Database (IPPD) coordinators. This process according to the aggrieved teachers was to authenticate the claims made.
The process per the statement aimed at dealing with payroll corruption where IPPDs submitted ghost names for salaries. It, therefore, took a long time to get the salaries paid, leading to the government delaying in paying the first three months of salaries leading to several months of arrears
Teachers whose salaries have remained in arrears and part of the petitioners are disappointed in the government because they were promised the outstanding teachers legacy areas would be paid in January 2021 but nothing happened to date.
Read: Teacher impregnates three girls in same class at KEEA District
The government has promised to pay arrears for a little over 2500 affected teachers in October and November 2021. Teachers are only hoping this new promise will not be a carbon copy of what has been happening all this while. The petition said the government’s promise to pay the rest of the affected teachers in January 2021 did not materialize.
READ: Teacher Kwadwo Summoned by GES Over Professional Misconduct
Nana Opoku Foster said the executives of the Association had a meeting with the Director-General of the Ghana Education Service (GES) and other government appointees, where they were told the 2,550 affected teachers would be paid at the end of October and November 2021.