Ghana goes to IMF
Govt has decided to cancel nursing, teacher trainee allowances, Captain Smart alleges
The Teacher Trainees Association of Ghana (TTAG), has appealed to the government not to cancel the teacher trainee allowance as some Ghanaians have suggested to reduce the government’s expenditure.
According to TTAG, the cancellation of the allowance will have a very detrimental effect on trainee teachers’ education since most of them depend on it for their studies, 3news.com reports.
They added that the government must ensure that their allowance is not cancelled during the negotiations it is having for an International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout.
Speaking at the 26th delegates conference of TTAG, the President of the Ashanti, Brong and Ahafo regions (ASHBA) branches of TTAG, Adu Kwabena Dennis, said that one of their fears is that the allowance will be cancelled as part of an IMF conditionality.
“We want the government not to consider cancelling the allowance. I say this because when the allowance is cancelled, thousands of students who really depend on the allowance for survival will be side-lined.
“I must confess that it was the allowance that encouraged most of us to attend the colleges and it is the same allowance that has sustained some of us. In fact, some of us depend on the allowance to pay our fees and buy books,” he said.
Some Ghanaians have suggested that the government has to cancel some of its social intervention policies including the teacher and nursing training allowances to help mitigate the current hardship in the country. They even argue that the IMF will force the government to cancel the allowances before giving it the $2 billion bailout it is seeking.
Also, Renowned broadcaster, Blessed Godsbrain Smart, popularly known as Captain Smart, has described the nursing and teacher trainee allowances being implemented by the government as the most useless policy Ghana has ever had.
According to him, the trainee allowance policies are not equitable and were made by the government just to score political points.
Captain Smart, who made these remarks on his Maakye show on Onua TV, monitored by GhanaWeb, suggested that the government has already decided to cancel these allowances even before its negotiations with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a bailout begin.
“You did need the IMF to tell you to cancel trainee allowance. Because we saw it from afar that there are certain useless political promises which will bring the government to a standstill and collapse it,” he said in Twi.
Meanwhile, GhanaWeb is accepting nominations for the prestigious GhanaWeb Excellence Awards – Youth Edition. Click here to nominate.
Watch the latest episode of The Untold below:
IB/WA
File photo: Teacher trainees picketing over unpaid allowance