Minister of Health, Kwaku Agyemang-Manu
The Ministry of Health has assured trainee nurses that their allowances will be paid by the end of this week.
The issue of allowances for trainee nurses became a major campaign point in the 2016 elections after the New Patriotic Party (NPP) promised to restore the payments which were scrapped by the Mahama government.
The government restored the allowances of GH¢400, effective September 2017, to the joy of the trainee nurses who had complained of the hardships they faced without those funds.
However, some of the trainees have told Citi News that they have not received a pesewa since the announcement, adding that several calls to responsible authorities to have the monies released have proved futile.
The Public Relations Officer for the Ghana Nurses and Midwives Trainees Association, Akugri Gadafi, in a Citi News interview said the delayed release of the allowances was leading to increased frustration among the students.
“It has affected us in so many ways because these allowances were restored purposely to support us financially as we undergo our training. And as it was launched by the President, all parents are aware that we now receive GHc400 as allowances. In actual fact, most of us have not received our allowances since September 2017,” Gadafi said.
According to him, they have complained to the Health Ministry on several occasions “and they keep on giving us assurances but it has gotten to a point that we no longer don’t know what to do.”
“They have given us another assurance that they have now compiled the data and we are all hoping that before this month of January ends, trainee nurses will receive their monies and when it fails, we as the national executive board will decide the next line of action,” he added.
The Public Relations Officer of the Health Ministry, Robert Cudjoe in response to these concerns, however, said government will soon release funds for payment of the allowances.
He explained that payment of the allowances had been delayed by challenges with the Ghana Integrated Financial Management Information System (GIFMIS).
He assured the nurses that the outstanding payments will be made by the end of the week.
“We are expecting Controller and Accountant General’s Department to release the November and December allowances but this time around there is this thing called GIFMIS platform which all institutions are supposed to get their releases from.
“Unless the money has been released through the platform, there is no way you can get money to spend so that is a contributory factory. We are hoping that by close of this week, they should see their monies sitting in their accounts.”
–citifmonline.com