Teachers affected by the three months Pay Policy may not be happy in their endeavors to work hard after continuous promises made to them by their Union Leaders and government.
The teachers accused their union leaders as well as government for doing nothing about the arrears but giving them unnecessary hopes.
READ The EXTRACTS from THE TEACHERS…
The policy (Three months pay policy) was introduced by the Ministry of finance to address the issue of payroll fraud, the idea of which was not bad, since some district directors were using fraudulent means like backdating of appointment letters, creating ‘ghost schools’ (schools which never existed) and submitting documents for ‘ghosts’ to be paid, only to realize the monies were being siphoned into their money bags etc.
Perhaps, i would have been the first person to accept this policy because of its role in bringing sanity to the payroll system. But i would have also considered the following factors first;
1. I wouldn’t have eaten Banku before attending the stakeholders meeting where the policy was introduced, such that i wouldn’t be sleeping or dozing off during when i needed to ask probing questions.
2. I would have weighed both the pros and cons to ascertain whether the implementation of the policy was indeed the right medication to the predicament.
3. I would have also asked questions about the action plan, based on which government was going to implement the said policy and insist on a roadmap.
4. I wouldn’t have accepted any letter or A4 sheet in a brown envelope, before, during and after the meeting.
5. I wouldn’t have also honour any meeting which would be organized at a private hotel, since government have a lot of conference halls.
After several surveys to fish for the pros and cons of the validation for which reason the policy was introduced, i would want us to consider some few points to judge for ourselves whether the teacher unions are really working or not.
Pro: If well implemented could prevent payroll fraud.
Cons: 1. The validation which forms part of the implementation process is very expensive. At a point in time some of the cost involved was even financed by the teacher unions. Teachers have to absent themselves from class, travel to their district offices, print documents, make photocopies, only to be called again to fill same forms at another time.
2. The offsite validation was not neccessary: There are auditors in every district, these auditors represents the Auditor General and staff of the audit service to be precise, hence there was no need for documents to be shipped to Accra.
3. Negligence on the part of GES: This policy was introduced because staff of GES was the direct beneficiaries of the payroll fraud, hence their failure to support the implementation process. Forms which was submitted in 2013 and 2014 was kept in ‘Ghana must go bags’ at (Jacob kor)-led GES headquarters for almost two years without submitting it to Audit service for validation.
4. Lack of proper training of IPPD co-ordinators: Some forms were queried because the IPPD co-ordinators who filled them lacked knowledge about how to go about filling them.
I would say the policy is ‘governmentfish
‘ (as in selfish) because every indication shows that the policy just championed on the fraud associated with the payroll system to defraud teachers of their salaries. This is so because, GES staff whose negligence have caused the delays in payment of our arrears have been left unpunished.
Now to teacher unions, if you have nothing better apart from the Ananse stories, its better you keep it to yourselves, because it provides no answers to the following questions of ours;
1. What are you doing about the value of our monies which keep depreciating day after day?
2. Why do you have to agree that teachers who have absented themselves for 10 days have vacated their post, when they have not been paid for two to three years?
3. How will next-of-kins of teachers who died along the line get their monies if their forms are queried?
4. Why have you not prosecuted GES for sleeping on the job for almost theee years?
5. Why are you not serving our interest?
I am tempted to believe what some teachers are saying. Some say you are hypocrites and truly, the last time i checked, GNAT was on CCT for taking their members and to be precise, their dues. Hence i am not surprised to be hearing Ananse stories from these wicked union leaders. Afterall, they are not paid by government and don’t know how it feels to be denied salaries for even a month.
Source:EducationGhana.net
