[ 2017-05-01 ]

We won’t pay any utility bill – Trainee Teachers to government
Trainee Teachers across the country have resolved
not to pay any utility bill as being demanded by
the government through the Ministry of Education,
Kasapafmonline.com can authoritatively state.

In the view of the Trainee Teachers, once it was a
campaign pledge by then Presidential candidate of
the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Addo Dankwa
Akufo-Addo, to absorb their utility bills when
voted into power, a pledge which was also captured
in the party’s manifesto, there is no amount
words that will convince them to change their
minds.

They therefore, as a matter of fact, want to hold
the NPP which is now administering the affairs of
the country, to its campaign pledge to absord
their utility bills.

The decision of the Teacher Trainees,
Kasapafmonline.com understands, was taken on
Sunday, April 30, 2017, when they met at a General
Assembly in Sunyani in the Brong Ahafo Region to
elect a president for the Teacher Trainees
Association of Ghana (TAG), the umbrella body of
all Teacher Trainees across the country.

The Minister of Education, Dr. Matthew Opoku
Prempeh, had revealed that the government shall
not pay utility bills for Teacher Trainees when he
met stakeholders in the sector at a meeting held
on April 12, 2017, at the conference room of the
Ministry of Education.

Instead, the feeding grant and utility bills
should be deducted at source from the Teacher
Trainees’ allowance when restored in September,
2017.

The meeting Kasapafmonline.com understands was
attended by the Minister, Dr. Matthew Opoku
Prempeh, his deputy, the Chief Director of the
Ministry of Education, the Director-General of
Education and the leadership of the Teacher
Trainees Association of Ghana.

Sources say the Teacher Trainees see the decision
of the Ministry of Education as a stab in the back
since they had earlier been assured by the Chief
Director of the Ministry of Education at a meeting
held between the two parties in March, 2017, that
government would absorb their utility bills.

The President of the Teacher Trainees Association
of Ghana, Ashanti/Brong Ahafo Region branch, Seth
Prah, commenting on the issue in an interview with
Akwasi Nsiah on Kasapa FM, confirmed the decision
taken by the Association.

“We have resolved not to pay the utility bills.
The previous government led by President Mahama
had earlier communicated to us through a deputy
Minister of Education, Samuel Okujeto Ablakwa that
no College of Education should pay utility bills.
This was also reaffirmed by Nana Addo Dankwa
Akufo-Addo and the NPP in their manifesto. So, we
have decided not to pay and we will soon come out
with a communiqué to that effect,” he noted.

Source - kasapafmonline.com

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