The Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia last week said the Ministry of Finance has approved a sum of GHC177 million to be paid to trainee nurses across Ghana. The money is part-payment of an outstanding debt owed the trainees for months.
The Minister, while commenting on the concerns by the trainee nurses regarding their delayed allowance promised by government, said they should be grateful to government for the effort to get the issue resolved.
According to him, he acknowledges the delays and the number of them yet to receive their monies.
“I have sighted communiques from the Ministry through Ministry of Finance and back and forth showing that we paid some GHC177 million for over one hundred thousand nurses covering some four months of payments. Look, there are thousands of nurses whose allowance has been paid by this government.
And it is also true that there are others whose payments are in arrears. We have decided to work hard to sustain and to pay this arears. You have to choose between the one who says I will pay you and pays you and sometimes owes you. And the other one who says, me I can’t pay these things at all,” Dr Okoe Boye stated.
The Minister further threw a challenge to the trainee nurses on who is their best bet between the two governments.
“And so, if you have had the other government led by John Mahama, for the past 8yrs it will be zero for all nurses in Ghana. But as we speak hundreds of thousands of nurses have had support from the Akufo-Addo government and it is also true there are hundreds of thousands who are calling for theirs to come. We will work hard to ensure that everybody receives what is due them.
This is the kind of government that you have to support. The one who says I will shoulder this burden. I will work hard to sustain, it is better than the one who says this is too much load for me. I can’t carry. The choice is yours,“ he said.
