A member of the communication team of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) Dr Zakaria Mawiah has said government denied about 5000 prospective nursing students admission in order to restore the scrapped trainee nurses allowances.
A host of government officials, including president Akufo-Addo converged at a lavish ceremony in Sunyani Tuesday to officially announce the restoration of the allowances which were cancelled by the administration of former president John Mahama.
The scraping of the allowances was met with grave disapproval, assuming a key weapon of the Akufo-Addo 2016 campaign.
The government said the restored monthly allowances of the trainee nurses will cost it a whopping GH¢232million this academic year. About 58,000 nurses and midwives are expected to benefit from the restored policy. They will be paid GH¢400 each monthly during the 2017/2018 academic year.
The Conference of Heads of Health Training Institutions (COHHETI) praised the government for restoring the scrapped allowances.
Speaking on the development on Morning Starr Friday, Dr. Mawiah chastised the government for restoring the allowances.
Also, he said the pomp and pageantry that characterized the restoration was unnecessary and disheartening.
“I don’t understand why the NPP launched the restoration of allowances. Why waste money and print t-shirts just because you want to restore allowances. It’s a waste of the Tax Payers money. 5000 were denied admission to the Training Colleges so the allowances could be restored. That is very sad,” he told Morning Starr Host Francis Abban.
On his part, the NPP representative on the show, Kwesi Etuaful said the launch was important “so that all will know about it.”
The restoration of the trainee nurses allowances earlier this week triggered series of protests from students of all Agric Training Colleges across the country, demanding the restoration of theirs as well.
But in his reaction to the Agric Students, Mr Etuaful said: “Our campaign promises didn’t have timelines. The Agric students should hold on and they won’t be disappointed.”
Source: Ghana/Starrfmonline.com/103.5FM
