Over 64,000 Teachers in the country who are employed by the Ghana Education Service (GES) are expected to face a validation exercise within 88 days beginning October 1 for the GES to get rid of those who have presented fake certificate, the Audit Department and the Controller and Accountant General’s Department were tasked to validate their documents before payments of salaries made.
But the process stalled last December and is expected to commence at the Ministry of Finance Conference room next month after the Audit Service and the Ministry of Finance had almost concluded on all modalities to reconvene for the validation exercise. The General Secretary of Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), Mr. David Ofori Acheampong, made this known in an interview with the Daily heritage after the launch of the 2017 GNAT Week/World Teachers Day in Accra.
“Yes, the validation exercise was suspended last year around December, but about two months ago we engaged the Ministry of Finance to reconvene for the exercise to begin. As at August, the Ministry of Finance has asked Audit Service, Fair Wages and Salary Commission and Ghana Education Service to work out and get the actual figures outstanding yet to be dealt with.”
He added that, “the figures were close to about 64,000 and that 64,000 is what they are going to work on. The information we received at the meeting with Audit Service is that they will need 88 days to do the validation and that is where we are now.”
The Audit service, he said, “has submitted its expenditure for the exercise to the Ministry of Finance and, yesterday (Wednesday), I had a meeting with the Deputy Minister of Finance and he confirms it has come and they are working on it to get the logistics for the team to start the validation exercise.”
Interdicted heads Unacceptable Concerning headmasters and headmistresses who have been interdicted, Mr. Acheampong said the GES must come and ensure due process in their collective agreement in sanctioning teachers and described the recent interdiction of nine headmasters’ and sacking of two others as “Unacceptable”.
“In the Ghana Education Service, we have district directorates, regional directorates and national headquarters. So if something is done at the district level, it is up to the district authorities to take the initiatives, so they will have to investigate and prefer charges as existed in the Code of Ethics and then the offending teachers are brought before the disciplinary committee to answer for the things that they have done wrong.”
He said “if they are found guilty and punishment prescribed against them, which is in our documents, and they are not satisfied, then they can appeal to the regional disciplinary committee. If the regional disciplinary committee confirms the punishment meted out, they can then appeal to the national disciplinary committee.
“But these colleagues of ours didn’t get the opportunity of being brought before eh disciplinary committee at the district level; neither did they have the opportunity at the regional level. What it meant was that their cases were heard at the national level and this is completely unacceptable. It is just like going to the law court and the case ought to be heard at the High Court but is determined at the Supreme Court.”
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