The Public Relations Officer of the Ministry of Health, Isaac Offei Baah, has revealed that the Ministry of Finance has released an amount of GHc154 million to settle the arrears of the nursing trainees.
He said last week, an amount of GHC62 million was paid. This week, another GHC30 million has been disbursed and they expect the disbursement of another GHC62 million next week.
Speaking in an interview with TV3’s Daniel Opoku on Tuesday, November 28, Mr Offei Baah appealed to the trainees to be patient with the government as all their arrears are paid.
“We know we owe them some amount of money, and so we had an agreement with them. We sat down and spoke about it and the demand was seven months.
“We paid two months last week, as I spoke to you yesterday, another tranche was also released and we are hoping that by next week, we will pay out another tranche. So, it is not like the government is not paying them the money, the government is paying them the amount owed duly,” he said.
He added “The only reason why it is delaying is because we all know the situation in which we earlier found ourselves. By the will of God, we are getting out of this situation, and so the government has started giving out funds is one of the reasons we can say our nursing trainees and nurses should exercise some bit of patience for us, we will get the money for them, we have started paying them as agreed and this week another tranche is gone, next week another tranche will also go.
“So far, last week was GHC62 million, this week is GHC30 million and we expect another GHC62 million. So, you can look at the quantum of money. The number of nurses has increased significantly to close to 150 percent. So where you have to admit 30,000 students every year, that should tell you that in the next three years, you have 30,000 students coming out.”
This comes at a time the Flagbearer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Former President John Dramani Mahama told President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia to pay the nursing trainees their allowance.
It is recalled that Mr Mahama, while in office canceled the payment of allowance to the teaching and nursing trainees to allow for more people to access the training institutions.
He argued that the payment of the allowance was denying more people access to education.
But President Akufo-Addo upon assumption of office, restored the allowance.
But the nurse trainees said for two years now, they have not received any payment from the government.
Mr Mahama during his ‘Building Ghana Tour’ in the Bono Region on Sunday, November 19 said “Nana Addo and Bawumia said they will pay the allowances, I beg you, Nana Addo and Bawumia if you’re hearing me, we are here in Krobo Nursing Training School, they say two years now you haven’t paid them their allowances, let the allawa come.”