The Ghana Nurses and Midwife Trainees’ Association (GNMTA) has welcomed the decision by the government to restore allowances for trainee nurses across the country but want immediate steps taken to ensure payment to beneficiaries.
It fears the bureaucracy in the system may affect processes leading to disbursement of funds, hence has asked President John Mahama who announced the decision, to direct both the Finance and Health ministries to act with dispatch.
“We heard the pronouncement made by the President and we are all happy about it but our reservation is about the bureaucratic system in the country. As we speak now…documents to authenticate the process and how much we would be paid and when the payment will begin, we don’t know,” the Association’s spokesperson, Godwin Akadz, told 3FM.
Government scraped the allowance for teacher and nursing trainees in the country to invest the monies into infrastructural development at the various training institutions to enable them absolve the huge numbers of students who apply.
But the government has since received backlash, especially from nursing students; something that caused government to introduce what it termed as a monthly abated allowance of GHC150 in July this year to cushion the trainees.
Government has yet to begin payment of the said allowance.
Addressing some trainee nurses Tuesday during his campaign tour of the Brong Ahafo Region, President John Mahama, who had suggested he would prefer losing this year’s election on principle than to restore the allowance, what many people have tagged as a u-turn.
He announced a full restoration of the allowances which the trainees have welcomed with others describing the new decision as politically motivated to give a boost to President Mahama’s bid for a second term of office.
Commenting on the decision, Mr Akadzi said while the GNMTA is happy and appreciates the promise by President Mahama, it is important that he “task the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Health to task all the health training institutions to begin the processes for the allowances to be paid.’’
He said it would be “unfortunate to say what he’s saying is not true but what we are considering is the bureaucracies involved but if he says so we hope what happened in 2012 will not repeat’’.
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