The Ghana Nurses and Midwife Trainees’ Association (GNMTA) has raised questions over President Mahama’s promise to restore their allowances and are asking the president to directs the finance ministry to facilitate the processes to meet his promise.
The trainee nurses have been agitating over the non-payment of their allowances for the past two years. They have constantly accused government of delaying in releasing clearance letters for them.
Before the scrapping of the allowances, it was pegged at one hundred and fifty Cedis per student.
But President Mahama whilst touring the Brong Ahafo Region on Tuesday, October 4, 2016 promised to restore the allowances of the trainee nurses from this month.
However, the GNMTA fears the promise of the president might not see the light of day due to the bureaucracy of the payment system.
Spokesperson for the association, Godwin Akadzi in an interview on 3fm said “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, the pronouncement has been made but documents to authenticate the process and how much we would be paid and when the payment will begin we don’t know.”
Mr. Akadzi further indicated that although they appreciate the president’s promise, they want him to “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.
“If he were to be anybody else I would say it is not realistic but he is the first gentleman of the land and it would be unfortunate to say what he’s saying is not true but what we are considering is the bureaucracies involved.”
The issue of allowances for both teacher and nursing trainees has become a huge political debate since government announced that it was scrapping the allowances.
The main opposition NPP has promised the trainee associations that if they are given the mandate, their government would restore all the allowances.
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