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The General Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Johnson Asiedu Nketia has called on teacher trainees in the country to ask the running mate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, where he would get the needed funds to restore the allowances of trainee teacher.

“Ask him, Mahamudu [Bawumia] where he would be getting the money to pay for the allowances of the trainee teachers…which priority of government is he going to cancel to use to pay for that…,” the NDC scribe quizzed.

General Mosquito said this on Adom FM while reacting to a recent promise by the former deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana that an NPP government would restore the teacher trainee allowance abolished by the current government.

Dr. Bawumia said this while on his recent tour of the Volta Region.

“I cannot understand the management style of the NDC that students at the Colleges of Education and nurses allowances were not removed at the time the nation had not found oil and I cannot also understand why at the time Ghana had discovered oil and more money is derived from the oil find, allowances of students at the Colleges of Education and Nurses’ Training Colleges have been removed; it does not make sense,” he said during his recent tour.

But Asiedu Nketia insists Dr. Bawumia’s pledge to the students only forms part of mere political pledges by politicians who are hungry for power.

According to him, enrollment in the teacher trainee colleges has increased significantly from 9000 to 15000 and hence was of the opinion that the cancellation of the allowances have been of greater help to the colleges.

“…Those in teacher training should know that if enrolment had not been expanded, more of them wouldn’t have had admission into the colleges…about 50% wouldn’t have been there in the first place to even demonstrate…,” he said.

Thus for him, the NPP running mate is only talking about things the party cannot achieve when they come to power.