Teacher Unions bear teeth with gov’t over 14,345 ‘ghost’ names

The Teacher Unions in Ghana have criticized the Controller and Accountant General Department for declaring some 14,345 teachers in the service as ‘ghost’. This development comes after the Audit Service concluded in its report that, these teachers are out of service. Their names were subsequently expunged, sparking an uproar among the teacher unions.

The Teacher Unions argued that the payroll clean-up undertaken was done without recourse to protocols and that believed the exercise was fraught with anomalies. They have thus issued a 14-day ultimatum to government to reinstate these affected teachers and also pay their withheld salaries without delay.

“The leadership and the entire membership of the Teacher Unions i.e GNAT, NAGRAT and CCT-GH cannot and will not sit by for innocent and hardworking teachers to be wrongly denied their legitimate salaries and compensations. We hereby call on the Audit Service to immediately withdraw that list of names given to the Controller and Accountant General Department and also ask the Ghana Education Service to immediately direct the payment of the salaries and arrears that have accrued to the affected teachers.

“We call on the management of the Ghana Education Service to ensure that the teachers are paid without delay. The leadership of the Teacher Unions, GNAT, NAGRAT, and CCT-GH is giving up to 15th September 2020 ultimatum for the affected Teachers to be paid or we have no other alternative than to advise ourselves”, a statement from the Teacher Union indicated.