Professor Kwasi Opoku Amankwah
A GROUP of 102 teachers are battling out with the Ghana Education Service (GES) and the Attorney General in court over the non-payment of their salary arrears.
The teachers are seeking the enforcement of a judgment (fieri facial) they received against the GES to pay them a total of GH¢3,471,240.72 being their salaries for work done over some three to four years but which the GES, allegedly has failed to comply.
They recently impounded some vehicles of the Eastern Regional Director and the Regional Accountant, to drum home their demand.
Also, some buses belonging to some Senior High Schools in the Eastern Region were confiscated.
The 102 plaintiffs across the country sued the GES and Attorney General in 2017.
The Koforidua High Court, presided over by supervising high court judge Justice Gifty Dekyem (Mrs), on December 18, 2020, entered a judgment of GH¢3,471,240.72 including costs and interest against GES to be paid to the teachers.
However, a year after the judgment, GES has allegedly failed to pay the judgment debt forcing the plaintiffs to execute the writ of fieri facias to confiscate vehicles of GES including administrative vehicles in good shapes and buses of some Senior High Schools, in an attempt to auction those to defray the debt.
The exercise was carried out with the protection of armed police.
One of the plaintiffs, Effah Darko, said they would employ all legal means to retrieve the monies which they have worked for.
According to him, “We are about 102 teachers and we worked from 2011. We worked for three and four years. It was only in 2016 that the government started to pay us without paying those arrears.”
“We wrote petitions to other stakeholders for the arrears to be paid but they refused to pay. So our last option was to get a lawyer to fight for us. We went to court in 2017; we had judgment in 2020; but after the judgment, Government is refusing to pay the money, almost a year now. So the option left for us is to confiscate the properties for our employer to auction them to settle the debts.”
He explained that “We have impounded the vehicles of the Regional Director and the Regional Accountant. They are now at the forecourt of the high court”.
“We also impounded the Birim South District Director’s car but the director and driver run away with the keys so, we are now planning to tow away the car to the high court in Koforidua,” he added.
GES Explanation
Meanwhile, the Eastern Regional Public Affairs Unit, reacting to the incidents, explained that before 2017, some people were recruited into GES without financial clearance from the Ministry of Finance.
According to the PR Unit, such recruitments were done at the district and regional offices without recourse to the headquarters.
It explained further that in 2017, upon an appeal to the government, through the Minister for Education, the government decided that the appointments should be formalised as the GES, through the MoE, applied for financial clearance from the Ministry of Finance.
It stated that “the Financial Clearance granted by the Ministry of Finance, was with effect from 2017” adding that “the affected staff agreed in principle that they could only be paid from 2017 based on the financial clearance. All the people involved were therefore issued fresh appointment letters which took effect from 2017”.
“They have since been mechanised and have been receiving their regular salaries. Despite the agreement, some of them decided to go to court to claim salaries for work done before 2017.”
The statement said the court ruled in their favor leading to the seizure of three GES vehicles in the Eastern Region.
The statement further said GES, has since retrieved the three vehicles while discussions are ongoing to see how to pay the debt owed the teachers.
“The matter is being handled by the Attorney- General’s Department in Koforidua. A full and detailed statement on the matter will be issued in due course,” it added.
BY Daniel Bampoe