Ghana as a great nation been divined into political enemies among themselves, people living in the country Ghana have ricks lot of people's life In spite of the approval of the 2013 budget, the NHIA and other critical agencies will have to wait till May before being reimbursed as commonalities will not be completed before Parliament goes on recess.
With the Parliamentary approval of the 2013 budget, sector ministries were due to reimburse agencies like the National Health Insurance Authority, (NHIA), the Ghana Education Trust Fund and contractors among others.
Unfortunately, all such entities would have to wait till May because the formula for the disbursement will not be placed on the floor of Parliament before the House rises for the Easter break by close of next week.
Parliamentary correspondent Elton Joy Brobbey, Chairman of Parliamentary Select Committee on Local Government and Rural Development, Dominic Azumah described the delay as unfortunate.
According to him, the Appropriation Bill which will pave the way for disbursement of statutory funds to institutions like the National Health Insurance Authority, the Get FUND and others, has not been passed.
The passage of the Appropriation Bill authorizes the withdrawal of monies from the Consolidated Fund and other public funds for the purposes of meeting government expenditure and running of the state during a financial year.
NHIA has however allayed fears of the possibility of the NHIS collapsing due to the delay because there is the possibility of Parliament being recalled for business should the situation warrant any such emergency.
The NHIA has recently come under serious criticisms for its failure to reimburse service providers to NHIS subscribers. The situation deteriorated when the Christian Health Association of Ghana (CHAG) withdrew its services to about 42% of the Nation’s NHIS subscribers.
Angered by the National Labour Commission’s late invitation to a crunch meeting involving the government and the two striking teacher bodies, the Teachers and Educational Workers Union (TEWU) say they are also laying down their tools.
Joy News can confirm that the union met today and has formally decided to join the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) and the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT) on a nationwide strike.
The National Labour Commission Wednesday directed the government represented by the Fair Wages and Salary Commission (FWSC) to sit with GNAT and NAGRAT to resolve their grievances and report to the Commission in seven days. The teachers were supposed to go back to the classroom as negotiations continue.
But President of TEWU, Peter Lumor suggested that their members have been ignored, which he said is an indicative of the fact that the government does not take them serious.
“We have decided to ask TEWU members to join the ongoing strike, because the issue at stake does not affect only GNAT and NAGRAT members, it affects TEWU members also.”
He said their concerns have been raised several times and even when the Vice President Paa Kwesi Amissah-Arthur met organized labour on Friday, as well as the meeting with the Chief of Staff at the Flagstaff House on Sunday, their concerns were equally highlighted.
He therefore asked, “is it because we have not declared a strike people are not taking us serious? And you invite GNAT, NAGRAT to Labour Commission and you left out TEWU.”
Even though TEWU was invited to the Wednesday's meeting with NLC, Mr Lumor said they could not honour the invitation because it came in late at 9am when the meeting was also scheduled for the same day in the morning.
He explained “Our management committee was meeting and our members all over the country were calling [asking] what was happening and we have to meet, discuss and tell them something. So we could not postpone our management committee at 9am and go to that meeting.”
But Head of Communications at the FWSC, Earl Ankrah indicated that the Commission cannot be blamed for the late invitation, although regrettable.
Nevertheless, he said late invitation to emergency meetings such as the one held today was nothing unusual, describing TEWU’s absence as “unfortunate”.
He also wondered how TEWU’s decision to go on strike would pan out now that the NLC has directed GNAT and NAGRAT to resume work and go back to the negotiations table. He added that the call by TEWU “is a little disjointed” and called on them to allow negotiations to go on.
The National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT) has said that its members will return to the classroom only if they see measurable commitment to address their concerns from government.
The association said this shortly before entering into a crunch meeting with the officials from the National Labour Commission (NLC), the Ghana Education Service (GES), Fair Wages and Salaries Commission (FWSC) and Ministry of Finance to discus the stand-off between the teachers and the education authorities.
NAGRAT President Christian Addai Opoku said the teachers' body had outlined three conditions that must be met before they return to the classroom.
He said the GES was supposed to write to the finance ministry for requesting for monies to pay the striking teachers their maintenance allowance. "We want to see the answer from Ministry of Finance directing that these monies have been directed to GES to pay the maintenance allowance through Controller and Accountants-General's Department.
"Second, we also want to see that there is a letter from the Ministry of Finance directing the payment of incremental credit. We also want to see a letter mandating FWSC and for that matter GES to start the re-negotiation of teacher retention premium".
These actions, he believes should be enough to end the strike which is in its third day.
President John Mahama and 2012 CPP Vice-presidential candidate, Nana Akosua Frimpomaa Sarpong have called on the striking teachers to soften their stance and reconsider their decision to withdraw their services.
But the NAGRAT President believes that they have been flexible enough over the years.
He said, "We are not saying that pay the monies into our accounts immediately, we are saying we want to see commitment to do this".
He lamented that "people (stakeholders within the education sector) are just not being teacher-friendly".
The nation need a lot of people to come together to build the nation as a whole from all the political parties to work a great nation, and leave the negative plans against the Government and serve Ghana as one.
