Salary delays, arrears: GES begs double track teachers, others to wait a little

It appears the about 8,000 recently recruited by the government to facilitate the implementation of the controversial double track system as well as teachers who have received upgrades and promotions will have to wait a little longer to get their salaries.

The GES on Wednesday admitted government’s failure to pay the teachers, citing payroll system challenges as the cause, claiming they were being worked on, but could not tell when the affected teachers will be paid except to say “due course”.

Five months after their employment and postings, the newly recruited teachers have not been paid salaries; something they said has made life unbearable for them as they struggle to feed themselves.

They told 3news.com Tuesday that the Ghana Education Service (GES), which is in charge of processing of their biometric data and the issuance of staff identity cards, has been dragging its feet in the exercise.

According to the teachers who form the Association of Newly Recruited Teachers (ANRT), they have met the Education Minister Mathew Opoku Prempeh twice on the non-payment of their salaries, but there appears to be no hope in sight for them.

However, the GES on Wednesday issued a statement to explain the cause of the delays which it said is being worked on before the teachers could be paid.

The delays, it explained, is as a result of systems and connectivity challenges caused by the migration of GES from the IPPD2 payroll system onto the Human Resources Management Information System.

“This has caused delays in the issuing of staff IDs and the capturing of staff biometric data for processing of the required salary payments,” the statement signed and issued by the acting deputy Director General Dr Kwabena Bempa Tando said.

It mentioned the affected staff as those who have received promotions and upgrades as well as the newly recruited teachers.

Management of GES wishes to “assure all staff, especially those affected, that management is working fervently to ensure all outstanding salaries and related arrears are paid in due course,” the statement said.

It said management of GES was working closely with the Public Services Commission, the Controller and Accountant Genera’s Department, the Finance Ministry, as well as relevant stakeholders to address the issues.

GES “is working relentlessly to complete all data inputs to enable salary arrears to be paid,” the statement added.

The management has thus appealed to the affected staff of what it termed as “unfortunate developments” to exercise “maximum restraint” as every effort is being made to ensure payments soon.